Guidelines For Writing A Lab Report

The general format you should use for the report:

Cover page
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Objective(s)
2.0 Materials and Methods
3.0 Results
4.0 Discussion
5.0 Conclusions
6.0 References
7.0 Appendix

Cover Page
Use the cover page upload in ACIS. Be creative with your title. Do not put the title from the
lab protocol. The title should summarize your work.

1. Introduction
This section should be a very brief and incisive summary that covers detailed background
information which is required to place the experiment in the proper perspective, and a brief
accurate summary of any useful, applicable theories. This section should give enough
information to convince the readers why you need to do the study as stated in the objectives
section.

1.1 Objective(s)
Sentences describe the overall objective of your work. Do not over-complicated the
objectives.

2. Materials and Methods

This section should contain the details of the experimental work. Do not describe this
section like a lab protocol. You should provide enough (but not too much) information for
other researchers to replicate your study Describe how you perform the study, and how you
collect the data. You must state number of sample in your study. More information on your
subjects is better. For example: age range, and whether your study subjects are volunteers
or not. Present the essential equations (can be in a sentence form). If you express the
equations in mathematical equation format, leave a space before and after the equations.
You must mention statistical tests use in your study and what software used to calculate it.
Lastly, it is not necessary to separate the section into materials section and methods
section. You could combine them together and make it into a nice narration. You may use
figures or tables to aid you in describing the methods. Only use subheadings if necessary.

3. Results
Do not present the results with just figures and tables. You can begin results section with
what you study and how you collect the data. followed by the findings. Make it into a story!.
The results section includes relevant observations as well as physical measurements. You
must describe your findings in texts. Information in texts, figures or tables should stand
alone. Do not ask the readers to read your tables or figures. You can only refer to the tables
and figures in brackets. Do not use ‘according to table 1…’ or ‘figure 1 shows…’.Put tables
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and figures after describing the findings. If you exclude some samples from your study, you
must justify why the samples removed from your study. You need to describe your selection
criteria. Whenever possible, the results should be presented in graphical or tabular forms.
Choose correct tables and figures to best represent the data. Tables and figures are
designed to make the results easier to understand, and provide the readers with more
dimensions than just reading texts. Label and resize the tables or graphs properly. Units
should be consistent and appropriate to the particular field of investigation. Title of the tables
or figures should be in the table/figure legends section. No results interpretation in your texts
(including table and figure legends).

4. Discussion
The discussion section evaluates the work that has been done and interprets its
significance. You must remind the readers what is your study again. State your findings.
State how your findings comply with your hypothesis or objectives. Discuss and interpret
your results. Confirm your findings with published results. You should also mention any
published result that disagree with your findings. State limitations of your study. State how
your study can be improved in the future.

5. Conclusion
Briefly summarize the findings supported by the data and the subsequent calculations of this
experiment. Your conclusion should answer your experiment objectives. No new information
in this section.

6. References
Only use scientific sources. One may follow the alphabetical format (sorted according to last
names) or numerical format (sorted according to the order of citation in the main text). Use
the same format consistently throughout the entire report. For numerical format, your
citations must be in order of which the in-text citation number first appear. See any standard
journal articles if the student is not familiar with the standard formats. You must use APA
referencing style. If you are not sure how the style looks like, you can go to this website
http://library.unimelb.edu.au/recite. Be consistent with the abbreviation of journal name. Not
necessary to put where you retrieved the journal articles.

7. Appendices
The results that do not quite fit well with the main text should be included in the appendices
section. Each appendix should be a standalone unit. All appendices must have a title and
must have a reference in the text. Assessors may choose not to read this section.

Additional Information
1. Be concise, coherent, use your own words, and no dot points.

2. Font: Arial, Font size: 11, Line spacing: 1.5, One column, Margin: 2.54 cm for top, bottom,
left, and right area, Paper size: A4. You must use justify alignment for your texts. Page
number must be on the bottom right of each page. Use a numeral system. Use different
(other than Arial) font type and size for your figure legend.

3. Submit your report to ACIS only as .doc or .docx file. Submitting .pdf file will be count as
no submission. For late submission, you will get the penalty of 10% marks deduction per
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day (including weekend). The paper will not be accepted five days after the deadline. If you
submit your paper 1 minute late, you will get 10% deduction. No excuse on bad internet
connection, you are expected to submit the paper prior to the deadline. If ACIS system
down, please send your paper to the lecturers.

4. Remember, you are not being graded on your results of the experiment; therefore, a
good, accurate representation of them, with any intelligent explanation or hypothesis for any
data obtained, is critical.

5. No plagiarism and collusion. You will get zero and possibly fail this subject.