Formal Laboratory Report Guidelines

You will be required to write a formal laboratory report for some of the experiments you perform in this course, including your laboratory project. There should be no plagiarism. Anything that is copied word-for-word from another source must be put in quotes and the source identified.The reports you write in this course should conform to the following guidelines:

1. It must be typed.
2. It must be double-spaced OR single-spaced with double spaces between paragraphs. All sections should be labeled and separated from the previous section.
3. As much as possible, it should be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Use a spell-checker or have someone else proofread the report.
4. It should be written in third-person narrative style and in past tense. For example,
   • write "The mixture was heated to boiling and removed from the hotplate."
   • not "We heated the mixture until it boiled and then we removed it from the hotplate."
   • not "Remove the mixture from the hotplate once it begins to boil."

The laboratory report will require more work to produce on your part and more work to evaluate on the part of your instructor. For this reason, it will carry a greater weight in the final grade.

The laboratory report should consist of the following eight parts:

    1.    Title of the experiment.

    2.    Course Information: Name, Lab Partner(s), Instructor, Course, Section, Date.

    3.    An abstract of the experiment, in your own words. The abstract is a very short summary (approx 1 paragraph) of:

• the purpose of the experiment
• what you did
• how you did it
• your significant results
• your conclusion

    4.    An introduction to the experiment. The introduction should:

• introduce the reader to your topic
• address the question(s) you are trying to determine in this experiment
• give pertinent background information
• if necessary, show your hypothesis (or hypotheses) in statement form

    5.    The procedure(s) used in the experiment. The procedure should:

• show the materials used
• tell how the experiment was performed
• not have any of your results or conclusion

    6.    The experimental results. This includes:

• graphs and data tables generated in the experiment
• all graphs and data tables should be clearly titled and be labeled with proper units

    7.    A discussion section. The discussion should:

• provide a conclusion based on your data
• indicate specific data which supports your conclusion
• answer postlab questions
• if necessary, restate your hypothesis and tell whether it was proven or disproven by your data
• explain why it was proven or disproven
• address any errors or ways to improve the experiment
• cite literature sources used to complete your report

    8.    Laboratory Report Checklist.