Lab reports are usually part of the science courses that involve laboratory sessions. Instructors require their students to write a lab report to explain what they have done in experiments, what they have learned and understood and its implications. Your instructor may not provide you with a lab report format. But when they have not offered one, and you are not confident on the parts to include and what to indicate in each section, here is a complete guide of writing scientific reports.
Lab Report Format
A standard lab report should have the following sections; title, abstract, introduction, method, results, and analysis, discussion, conclusion, references, and appendices. The reports and each section may vary in length.
Title
Your title indicates the primary purpose of the study. Keep it short, an average of ten words or less (Helmenstine, 2020), and include all the variables you are exploring. Avoid writing the title in a question form and preferably begin with a keyword, not articles. Some instructors can ask for a title page for your lab report; this should be kept simple and indicate the title of the experiment, your name and names of lab partners, instructor’s name, and date.
Abstract
An abstract is the last part of the report to be written, which gives a brief overview of the lab report contents. “How to write an abstract” for a lab report may sometimes be challenging if you are not confident of what to include and how to organize it. Short lab reports may not require an abstract. Lab report examples may give you an insight into what instructors expect.
How to Write an Abstract for a Lab Report
- Start by providing the aim and logic for the study in a one or two-sentence summary.
- Outline participants and setting of the experiment by answering the questions: who, when, where, how many, and what groups?
- Discuss the method. Design, experimental treatment, questionnaires, surveys, or tests involved.
- Outline the significant outcomes. Indicate statistics used and significance levels.
- The final statement indicates the study’s contribution to knowledge and includes the implications of the findings.
lab report format
- Introduction
State your hypothesis and objectives, concisely, in this section. The introduction may capture background information of the experiment, where you summarize the procedures, findings, findings of the investigation.
- Materials
The section contains a list of everything you needed to complete the experiment.
lab report format
- Methods
Describe the precise procedure, the various steps of the experiment, giving all the essential details easy for anyone to follow. Moreover, you may use flowcharts and diagrams to show the set up of the apparatus and equipment. Outline any calculations performed on the collected data here, plus any difficulty during the study and its solution.
- Results and Analysis
In your lab report, present the results of the experiment; this could be either graphically or using tables. Include error bars for figures where necessary and discuss how the results and errors were analyzed, and what results mean. Report averages, standard deviations, and a 95% confidence level for each IV level. Indicate whether the results are significant or not, and the group of effects that performed better. Report your data in APA style, where numbers are to 2 decimal places (3 decimal places for p-values and R-values), percentages, and degrees of freedom as whole numbers, and italicize statistical symbols that are not Greek letters. Similarly, include spaces on either side of an equal sign and give upper and lower limits of the 95% confidence intervals in square brackets.
lab report format
- Discussion
Summarize the findings and limitations, and interpret the results concerning your hypothesis. Make appropriate recommendations for the shortcomings and ways of improving the research and future research directions.
- Conclusion
A concluding paragraph should contain your lead points of the discussion, and it should not be more than four sentences. Summarize your findings and how they relate to the hypothesis. The conclusion should answer the question “So What?” by providing the implications of the results.
- References
Follow a specific referencing style, as may be prompted by your instructor, to list all the sources cited in your lab report in alphabetical order. References facilitate the location of your sources by readers.
- Appendices
You may have useful material for your lab reports, such as tables and raw data, that is too huge to include in the central part. Include such materials in the appendix section.
The above steps of the lab report format will solve all your questions on how to write a lab report for scientific reports. You can access various lab report examples from different websites to refine your skills in writing lab reports.
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