How to Write a Lab Report:
Ms. Rodela’s AP Classes
Facts about lab reports:
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A lab report is a concise and condensed version of all the
hard work you did during your investigation.
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Often times you will look at a lab report you wrote and think
“Seriously? I did ALL that work and its only # pages?” This
feeling is totally normal.
Well written lab reports convey a lot of information in a short
amount of space. The important thing is to be concise.
The single most important thing you can do is FOLLOW
THE INSTRUCTIONS!
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Seriously, I’ve taken the time to type all this out because this is
the way I want it.You can take the time to format correctly.
Facts about lab reports:
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Lab reports are scientific writing.
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Scientific writing is different from creative writing and even
different from the written analytical reports you are used to in
an English class.
While the basic tents of grammar are the same scientific
writing has different rules.
The basic rules are:
1) Write to your audience.
2) Tell the reader everything that is necessary and no more.
3) No one cares about your feelings. (Sorry if this sounds
mean but this is science – SHOW ME THE DATA!)
Overall structure of a lab report:
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The scope of various parts
of a lab report resemble an
hour glass.
You want to start off general,
looking at the big picture.
Then relate this big picture
to your study.
Then talk about your study
Then talk about your results
Finally, relate your results to
the big picture again.
Parts of a lab report:
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Introduction:
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The introduction should:
Introduce your reader to
the big topic
Explain why this big topic is
important to you, your
reader, and why it should
be considered important by
the whole world.
Explain how your small
research project relates to
this big topic.
Define your question (what
were you investigating?)
A few more notes on the introduction:
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Do not under any circumstances open with some cute
opening “hook” like:
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Isn’t <THIS TOPIC> so important!
Haven’t you ever wondered about…
We need to do something RIGHT NOW!
The “hook” is a writing device of English papers designed
to elicit an emotional response in your reader.
Remember this is science and we don’t care about your
emotions or your reader’s emotions.
A few more notes on the introduction:
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Do NOT use any text message, slang, or anything other
than proper English grammar.
If you turn in something that looks like this:
“OMG, like this is SOOOO Important because it’s like
cray-cray relevant to like the WHOLE world!”
I will give you this look: O_o
And then hand your report back to redo.
Let’s look at an example:
(HINT: This is bad)
Butterflies have six-legs, two pairs of wings, eyes, and
long antenna. Usually their wings are colorful but
sometimes they are not. Butterflies are insects. Butterflies
drink nectar from flowers. They are related to moths. Both
moths and butterflies are members of the scientific order
Lepidoptera. They are over 180,000 species in this order.
Butterflies and moths are found all over the world. They live
in deserts, rainforests, grass lands even cities. I will be
talking about butterflies in my paper.
Here is why this is bad: Write to your audience:You are
writing a scientific paper. It is fair to
assume that your reader knows what
a butterfly is.
Be Concise:
If you are
only talking
about
butterflies
than only
talk about
butterflies.
Butterflies have six-legs, two pairs of wings,
eyes, and long antenna. Usually their wings are
colorful but sometimes they are not. Butterflies
are insects. Butterflies drink nectar from flowers.
They are related to moths. Both moths and
butterflies are members of the scientific order
Lepidoptera.They are over 180,000 species in this
order. Butterflies and moths are found all over the
world. They live in deserts, rainforests, grass lands
even cities. I will be talking about butterflies in my
paper.
Be Concise and know your audience:
Okay so your are going talk about
butterflies. I’ll figure that out when you
start talking about them. Don’t tell me
your are going to tell me about them.
Here’s the good way to write that opening.
Butterflies, order Lepidoptera, are found globally in a
variety of habitats (valid citation).
**Concise is good.
More on citations later
but a good scientific
paper has tons of
them.
A few more notes on the introduction:
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Be covert not overt.
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You will need to explain your question and hypothesis but
don’t say: “My question is…” or “My hypothesis is…”
Instead include this in the writing of your introduction.
Example:
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“Previous studies have shown that… but fail to address [topic you
are studying]. This [topic you are studying] is an important aspect of
[big picture topic].”
Parts of a lab report:
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Materials and methods:
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This is were you get
specific.
You need to write well
enough that someone who
has never read your paper
can reproduce your study
based solely on your
description here.
This is a tricky section to
write because you want to
be specific, but not too
specific.
Now that you’re confused, here’s what I
mean:
Specific
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Twenty wild butterflies
were captured using a
standard butterfly net.
Conveys all necessary information to
repeat this step of the experiment.
Add a “crikey!” and you’d be the
crocodile hunter.
TOO specific
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First we went to the place
we know butterflies were.
Then we approached
them very slowly so we
wouldn’t scare them off.
Then we snuck up behind
them and trapped them
using our butterfly net. It
took about half an hour to
get them all. We finally
captured twenty.
Parts of a lab report:
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Results
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This is where you tell your
reader what you found in
clear, concise, facts.
Refer to graphs and figures as
evidence.
Your graphs and figures
should be readable and have
captions that explain what the
reader is looking at.
Keep interpretation at a
minimum, you’ll get your
chance at explaining in the
discussion.
Parts of a lab report:
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Discussion/ Conclusions
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Here you are going to
explain what your results
mean.
You are going to work
backwards from the
introduction, tying your
results to the big picture
topic you discussed earlier.
Citations
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In science you need to back up every claim you make
with evidence. The evidence can come from two different
sources:
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Other people’s work: cite a journal or book
Your work: cite your graphs and figures
Follow the correct formatting (see next two slides)
In Text Citations:
The Harvard (author, date) system of referencing is used.
 In the text, give the author’s name followed by the year in parentheses:
Sago (2000). If there are two authors use ‘and’: Baskin and Baskin (1998);
but if cited within parentheses use ‘&’: (Baskin & Baskin 1998).
 When reference is made to a work by three or more authors, the first
name followed by et al. should be used: Powles et al. (1998).
 If several papers by the same author(s) and from the same year are cited, a,
b, c etc. should be used after the year of publication to differentiate
between papers.
 In the list, references should be listed in alphabetical order. Cite the names
of all authors. Do not cite the first three and use et al., even when there are
seven or more authors.
 Personal communications, unpublished data and publications from informal
meetings are not to be listed in the reference list but should be listed in the
text (e.g. A. Smith, unpubl. data, 2000). Authors are responsible for the
accuracy of the references.
End of Report Reference list
References should be listed in the following form:
Journal
Nusslein-Volhard C, Wieschaus E. 1980. Mutations affecting segment
number and polarity in Drosophila. Nature 287: 795–801.
Martienssen R. 1996. Epigenetic phenom- ena: paramutation and gene
silencing in plants. Curr Biol 6:810–813.
Book
Gilbert SF, Epel D. 2009. Ecological developmental biology. Integrating
epigenetics, medicine and evolution. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer
Associates, Inc. 480 p.
Wylie, C. C., Scott, D. & Donnovan, P. J. 1986. Primordial germ cell
migration. In Developmental Biology, Vol. 2 (Ed. L. W. Browder), pp.
433–448. Plenum Press, New York.
Finally…
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Writing in any sense is a learning process.
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The key to getting good at writing is simple:
1.
2.
3.
4.
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The information here is part one
I’ll get more specific as the year moves on
Write
Have someone edit your work
Rewrite
Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you are good at writing
That said we will practice scientific writing over the
course of the school year