CEE 3020 Laboratory Report Style Requirements
At all stages of their careers, engineers are expected have effective written technical
communications skills that enable them to write project reports and proposals and to
communicate with supervisors, clients, and co-workers. Because technical writing skills are
critical for career advancement, effective report writing will be emphasized in this course. To aid
in report preparation for this course and in future technical writings, style and organization
guidelines that convey the formality, precision, and organization important in technical writing
are provided below.
Much of this document is based upon a laboratory style guideline prepared by Dr. Lisa
Rosenstein, Technical Communications Specialist, School of Civil and Environmental
Engineering and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Tech.
1.0 GENERAL REQUIREMENTS
Raw data collected during the CEE 3020 laboratory:
 must be signed by the teaching assistant or instructor before leaving the laboratory,
 need not be typed,
 but must be included in an appendix, except for lengthy computer-generated data.
Reports for CEE 3020 must:
 be entirely your own work
(Failure to comply with this requirement will be treated as suspected academic misconduct
will be referred to the Student Honor Advisory Council.)
 be typed with text in 10-12 point readable font and titles and headings in 12-18 point
readable font,
 be single spaced,
 include page numbers (except on the cover page, abstract, and table of contents),
 follow the organizational guidelines provided in Section 2.0 of this document,
 include in this order: a title page/grade sheet, abstract, table of contents, objective or
introduction, materials, equipment, procedure, results, discussion, conclusions, references (if
applicable), and appendices containing raw data and calculation sheets.
2.0 REPORT ORGANIZATION
CE 3020 laboratory reports are to be written in the style of a professional engineering report and
should be neatly prepared and well-organized. In addition to the style guidelines describe in
Section 3.0, specific guidelines for report preparation and organization are described below. In
addition, the instructor may provide supplementary instructions pertaining to each laboratory
exercise.
2.1 Title Page
The title page should include the following information:
 Laboratory # and title of lab
 Course #, name, and section
 Student name
 Group member’s names
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 Date
 Rubric for grading, like the one below:
Overall neatness and organization
Abstract
Introduction, Materials, Equipment, and Procedure
Results/calculations
Discussion
Conclusion
10%
10%
10%
30%
30%
10%
________
________
________
________
________
________
2.2 Abstract
An abstract is a brief summary of the main facts and conclusions in the report. It should be
viewed as a stand-alone document - something that can be read and understood independently of
the rest of the report. This is because it often is read independently by readers who want only a
general idea of the report’s content. Therefore, you must craft the abstract carefully, making sure
to include only pertinent information in a logical order.
The abstract must generally include the following information in the following order:
 The objective of the experiment
 A brief explanation of the methodology (typically 1-3 sentences will suffice)
 A summary of your results (give numerical values, if applicable)
 An explanation of the larger significance of your work (“The results suggest…” or “The
results indicate…” or “The results demonstrate…”)
Two optional elements of an abstract are "Background" and "Scope." Background information
often explains the motivation or engineering context of the experiment. Scope defines the limits
or parameters of the experiment. If you choose to include a background statement, place it before
the objective statement. If you choose to include a scope statement, place it after the objective
statement.
Abstracts should:
 Be one paragraph in length
 Be written in the present tense (except methodology, which can be written in the past tense)
 Be concise, but still include words like “a” and “the”
Abstracts should not:
 Include extensive background material, i.e., no developed discussion of the problem (or
need) that led to this work; however, as stated above, you might include a brief reference to
the problem in relation to the objective of the experiment.
 Include overly broad conclusions which are not developed in the report
 Cite references
 Refer to any part of the report
 Include figures, tables, equations, or footnotes
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2.3 Table of Contents
The table of contents should include titles of the sections in the laboratory report (i.e.,
Introduction, Materials, Equipment, etc.) and corresponding page numbers. The title page,
abstract page, table of contents, and appendices are not numbered with ordinal numbers. Ordinal
page numbering (i.e., 1, 2, 3…) begins with the “Introduction” section and ends with the
“Conclusion” section. Thus, having a table of contents:
 Requires that the entire report be paginated, with the exceptions stated above
 Requires that the first ordinally numbered item will be the “Introduction” and the last the
“Conclusion”.
The “Abstract” and “Table of contents” and “Appendix” may be page numbered separately,
typically by roman numerals (i.e., i, ii, iii, iv…), but this is not required.
2.4 Introduction or Objectives
For this course, a brief statement of the purpose or objectives of the experiment and significance
or usefulness of the test will suffice for the “Introduction”. Additional background information
describing the motivation for and context of the experiment may also be included.
Example:
Young et al. [1998] have reported that green gumballs are preferred to red gumballs. Thus, it is
of interest to know the relative percentages of each color gumball in a given sample. The
objective of this experiment is to sort gumballs by color to determine if a higher percentage of
green gumballs are present in the sample as compared to red gumballs.
2.5 Materials
Identify and specify the characteristics of materials used in the experiment, including type of
material, sample dimensions, and unique features. A sketch or photo is often useful to describe
the materials, and a list often provides organization when many materials must be described.
2.6 Equipment
Describe all the equipment and testing apparatus required for the experiment. Aim to provide
detailed descriptions that would enable the reader to replicate the experiment described. Again, a
sketch or photo of the laboratory set-up is often useful.
2.7 Procedure
In this section you are to summarize what was done in the lab.
 This may be written in paragraphs, or numbered steps.
 Remember to use passive voice.
 In your effort to faithfully recount what transpired in the lab, don’t go overboard and try
to account for every little action you engage in. Report activities central to the successful
completion of the lab, not ones that are part of most experimental procedures.
 Do not refer the reader to a laboratory handout for “further information”; the reader may
not have it. Fully describe or visually display all pertinent information. If you use
figures, make sure to number and caption them and label all significant parts.
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
While the experimental procedure should be a concise description of the steps performed
in the lab, it must not explain why certain steps were taken. These explanations should
be included in the “Discussion” section of the report.
2.8 Results
The results section is a combination of visual and written elements. However, the written
elements merely describe the visual elements; they do not interpret or analyze them.
 All of the data collected during the lab must be reported here.
 It is often useful to create summary tables, plots, and figures to illustrate comparisons
among data. See section 3.0, regarding the use of tables and figures.
 Place the bulk of the raw data in an appendix.
 DO NOT analyze, interpret, or explain any data. Analysis and interpretation is done in
the “Discussion”.
 A set of sample calculations, for each type of calculation performed, should be included
in this section.
 If qualitative observations were made during the lab, then the description of these
observations is also considered a result and should be included here.
2.9 Discussion
This is the section in which you will use your critical thinking skills. You will now interpret,
explain, and analyze the data. If you don't do this, the reader might a) not see what you have
found; or b) misconstrue what you have found.
 The data should be discussed in relation to what is expected in theory or based on prior
research.
 Lecture notes, the course laboratory manual, course textbook, and other textbooks are
good references to determine if the experiment results agree or disagree with anticipated
results.
 Remember, discrepancies in the data are not incorrect; they should be noted and
discussed. For example, “This feature does not correlate with what is expected but could
be due to...”.
In this course, the instructor will provide specific questions to be addressed in the “Discussion”
section. However, in general, comparisons between expected and actual results, comparisons
between behavior of different materials (e.g., tension behavior of steel vs. aluminum),
description of possible sources of error, and discussion of the limitations of the experiment are
appropriate.
2.10 Conclusions
 Provide two or three conclusions based on the data collected in the lab.
 Make sure the conclusions are directly related to the data collected in the lab. For
example, if microstructural characterization was not performed, then you cannot conclude
that the small grains measured are good for mechanical properties.
 Make sure that your conclusions are not just reiterated results but rather insights you can
draw from the results.
 Avoid making overly broad statements and generalizations.
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2.11 References
The references cited in the lab must be listed here (either alphabetically or by order of citation) in
standard documentation form.
 For books:
Author(s) (Year of publication) Title of book in italics, Place of publication, Publisher.
Example:
Young, J.F.; Mindess, S.; Gray, R.J.; and Bentur, A. (1998) The Science and Technology of
Civil Engineering Materials, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall.
 For articles:
Author(s) (Year of publication) "Title of the article with quotation marks, but in normal type",
Italicized title of magazine/journal, V.# (insert number X, if known)pp.x-xx.
Example:
Monteiro, P.J.M. and Kurtis, K.E. (2003) “Time to failure for concrete exposed to severe
sulfate attack”, Cement and Concrete Research, V.33(7):987-993.
 For websites:
Author (if known/relevant) (date produced, if known) Name of website in italics <Complete
URL in angled brackets>, Date of access.
Example:
Kurtis, K.E. (2003) CEE 3020 Materials of Construction, <http://www.ce.gatech.edu/
~kkurtis/3020.html>, accessed August 2003.
Make sure that all of the references included at the end of the report have been cited in the body
of the report. References may be cited in a number of ways:
 Numbered by order of reference: “…agrees with values for toughness given by (1).” or
“According to Young (1) …”
 By first author’s name and date of publication “… agrees with values for toughness given
by (Young, 1998).” or “According to Young (1998)…”
Be sure to be consistent in the way citations are made in the text and the way the references are
given at the end of the paper. That is, if citing by number, be sure to number the references. If
citing by author name and date, be sure to list the references alphabetically.
2.12 Appendices
Appendices may include the original raw data collected during the experiment, the laboratory
data sheet (signed by the teaching assistant or instructor), and your calculations. Unlike the rest
of the report, the appendices do not need to be typed. Also, it is not necessary to include lengthy
printed versions of digital data acquired during the experiment.
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3.0 VISUAL ELEMENTS
All visuals, such as figures and tables, should be introduced in the test. And, they must be
referred to in the text before they appear in the report. You cannot refer to figure 1, for example,
after the figure appears in the text; this is too late. The reader must be told that this figure is
coming.
Example:
Stress-strain plots resulting from the steel and aluminum tension tests are shown in Fig. 2.
Example:
Table 1 gives the mixture proportions for the trial batch and ACI mix designs.
3.1 Figures
All figures must be numbered (e.g., Fig. 1) and captioned below the figure. The caption must
concisely describe the content of the figure but also be detailed enough so that the reader can
understand the figure without reading the text.
You must:
 Label all parts of diagrams
 Include a legend in graphs, when necessary
 Include units of measurement in graphs
 Use an appropriate scale in graphs
3.2 Tables
All tables must be numbered (e.g., Table 1) and titled above the table.
You must:
 Keep columns and rows even
 Include headings for all columns and rows
 Line up decimal points (if applicable)
4.0 SENTENCE STYLE
4.1 Use Third Person
In technical documents, such as laboratory reports, sentences need to be impersonal, empirical,
and objective. The reader knows that you (the lab group/design team) have performed the
described work; therefore, you don’t need to constantly appear as the subject in the sentences.
What should appear as the subjects of your sentences are the things you are studying.
Example:
Not this: We found that the pressure varied with changes in temperature.
But this: Pressure varied with changes in temperature.
4.2 Use Passive Voice and Descriptive Verbs
Furthermore, experiments require observations, so you should expect to use some verbs
associated with seeing. Phenomena are “observed,” “seen,” “found,” and “shown,” and values
are “calculated,” and “determined.” These are the things that you do, but because you do not get
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to appear as the subjects of your sentences (see above), you must often use the passive voice in
order to maintain an impersonal stance while still recounting your work faithfully.
Example:
Not this: We used Equation 4 to determine the compressive strength.
But this: Equation 4 was used to determine the compressive strength.
Or this: The compressive strength was determined using Equation 4.
4.3 Use Descriptive and Precise Modifiers
Finally, technical documents must be written with an eye to specificity. Therefore, modifiers
(adjectives, adverbs) that are too general such as “large”, “greater”, and “quickly” are not only
inappropriate but ultimately useless in scientific reporting. Be sure to include numbers in your
writing.
Example:
Not this: A small amount of aggregate was weighed out and was heated in the oven over night.
But this: A 250-gram sample of saturated surface dry fine aggregate was heated to 200oF for 14
hours.
Example:
Not this: The steel was much stronger than the aluminum.
But this: Uniaxial tension testing showed that the yield strength of the steel is 20% greater than
the yield strength of 2024-T351 aluminum.
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