Sample Lab Assignment & Rubric

You must include an abstract, introduction, materials and methods section, results section,
discussion, and literature citations. Your grade on the reports will depend on completeness,
scientific accuracy and insight, organization, and writing skills.

1. Abstract of experiment. (10 points)

 Summary of the basic content of the experiment.
 State the purpose of the experiment, techniques used, report results, and give
conclusions.
 Concise summary of the whole report.
 Include summary data.

2. Introduction. (15 points)

 Introduce the purpose of the research
 Include context, i.e. prior knowledge and readings on the topic
 Properly cite your resources here.

3. Materials and Methods. (30 points)

 Describe the process used in the experiment
 Include list of materials used.
 Include your lab notes.
 Including all raw data, observations, calculations and appropriate graphs.

4. Results. (15 points)

 Summary of the final data (approximately 1 paragraph)
 Charts and graphs should be included and labeled well.
 Remember to title and provide legends for all graphs and tables.

5. Discussion. (20 points)

 Discuss the experiment and the results obtained. Do not simply report the results again,
but rather interpret and discuss their significance.
 Compared your results with other scientific literature where applicable.
 If you had problems with the experiment, discuss those problems here. What would
you do to improve results next time?
 What is your conclusion?

6. Reference Citations (10 points)

 All statements of fact, not considered “common” knowledge, must be properly
referenced.