Lab Report

Dearest science students,
Fear not. Reports are around to build our reasoning and writing skills and not to torture us. I had no clue on what to write on mine and my lecturer was busy calling us stupids and idiots for not knowing how to write a report. For starters, visit some websites to get to know a format of good science report.
Here are some;

http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/ScienceReport.html

http://unilearning.uow.edu.au/report/2b.html

I usually start my lab reports as shown below;

1. Title - very important. Common sense says you need to understand the title before reading an article.
2. Objective of the experiment
3. Introduction- can be paraphrased from the lab manual itself. The hardworking ones can use article reviews to write up on the concept behind the experiment.
4. Methodology - passive tense please or say goodbye to your marks.
5. Tabulation of Data -( results)preferably in table form. Other types are just messy (to me)
6. Discussion- this is where you vomit all your facts to at least 5 paragraphs. Keep it in mind, 1 point in one paragraph.
7. Conclusion - use your objective and rephrase it to read like a conclusion. (I normally do that)
8. Referencing - A MUST! refer to your lecturers on the type of referencing they use. Mine asks us to use APA style.

It is just to help you get a head start. Happy report writing.

Any questions, please leave a comment.