HOW TO WRITE A LABORATORY REPORT

1. Why is the report important?

If you wish to secure a good mark for your laboratories work, it is absolutely essential
that you write a good report. It is the report which is marked, not the way you conducted
the work or anything else you might have constructed during the laboratory period. No
matter how significant your achievements, if you do not write up your work, and write it
up well, you will obtain a poor mark.

2. What are the examiners looking for?

Remember that your report is an academic technical report, not a popular article or
commercial proposal. A laboratory report should communicate, as clearly and concisely
as possible, the rationale for the experiment, what was done, what the results were and
what the results mean. The report should be as short and simple as possible.

3. Report Structure

A typical laboratory report is organized in the following way:

1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Experiment
4. Results (Data Analysis)
5. Discussion
6. Conclusion
7. References

Abstract: The abstract is the most important section of any report. It should be designed
for your intended audience so that they can decide whether it is relevant for them to spend
their time reading or not. Therefore, the abstract usually should encapsulate the entire
report including three parts: an objective, a brief statement of your results, and a brief
statement of your overall conclusions. The objective should remind your tutor/grader of
why the experiment was done. Therefore, do not write the objective as if you were
writing the report to your professor. Do not say things like: "This experiment was done to
learn more about…..." Instead, write something like: "The objective of this experiment
was to determine the heat transfer coefficient for an agitated vessel for use in the design
of similar heat transfer vessels."

The abstract should then contain a brief overview of your experimental results. It should
not contain a list of all of your observations. Instead, you should include only a brief
paragraph of a few sentences discussing what you found. For example: "The heat transfer
coefficient for an agitated vessel was found at three agitator speeds." This is brief, and
tells the reader that if they do not have to read this report if they are not interested in heat
transfer coefficients.

The results are factual statements of what you did. You have not yet stated whether the
experiment succeeded or not. You should now include a brief paragraph (or even a single
sentence) stating your conclusions. Conclusions are your opinions concerning the facts
based on your engineering judgments. For example, if your data did not satisfy the
expected correlation, you should say so. Also, your conclusions should be directly related
to your stated objective. If your objective was to test a given correlation, then your
conclusion should state whether you were successful or not.

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As a guide, the abstract should contain less than approximately 200 words for laboratory
reports such as these. However, longer abstracts are appropriate if required to present an
accurate overview of the project and shorter abstracts are appropriate if it meets the
requirements stated above.

Introduction: Start with the motivation (or reason) for the experiment. Follow this with
the theory behind the experiment. Give a brief presentation, in your own words, of the
essential ideas behind the experiment. Include only the most important formulas
(explaining the meaning of any symbols used). Do not give any derivations unless they
are original. The purpose is just to establish the context of the experiment and state, for
reference, the relations you will be using in analyzing your data. (The proverbial
interested reader should be able to look up details elsewhere on the basis of your outline.)
One paragraph, in good English, should suffice.

Experiment: Succinctly describe, in your own words, the apparatus used and the
procedures followed to get your results. It is best to do this without reference to the lab
manual. Relying on your own memory is more authentic and provides practice for your
powers of observation. Tell what you did so that someone else could duplicate it from
your description. Obviously, neither your teacher nor the other students need this
exposition (anymore than they need your solutions to the homework problems for the
lecture part of the course); they all know about the experiment. This is an instructive
exercise, for your benefit, in attending to and understanding facts in a scientific manner
and to give you practice in describing them intelligibly. Think of your reader as an
intelligent physics student who has not done the experiment. You should demonstrate
clearly to your teacher that you know and understand what you did and can articulate it
simply. Often the simplest and clearest way to explain something is to give a schematic
drawing. This means a drawing without the details that are not essential to the point you
are trying to communicate. It is important to gain the skill of realizing and illustrating the
essence of a situation. This will also make it easier for the teacher to read and understand
what you write. So you are encouraged to use such drawings and you should include one
of the apparatus used. However, do not copy the detailed diagrams in the lab manuals
directly, a rough sketch of the apparatus showing the relevant physical variables (e.i. x, y,
[[theta]], etc.) is appropriate. Emphasize sketches of the equipment but three dimensional
artist's sketches are inappropriate. Such a drawing should illustrate what you have to say.

Data Analysis: Give one example of each calculation made; it should be clear that you
understand what you are doing. You may do the other calculations separately and include
only the final results. For your own benefit (and for the instructor’s sanity): BE NEAT!
Calculate errors and show any error formulas used; again, include one sample calculation

Clearly state the results you obtain. Data should be presented in an organized form, such
as in tables, charts and graphs, and stated in correct SI units. Do not use the tables from
your original data sheets for this purpose. All data is to be recopied and reformatted in the
Data Analysis section of the write-up. Experimental data should be compared to
theoretical predictions and calculations. Include the error analysis (such as standard
deviations and uncertainties) in your tables and with your final results. For help on error
analysis, see the Error Analysis section in the lab manual. See the section on Graphs and
Curve Fitting in the lab manual for an explanation on obtaining results from your graphs
and data. If a book value for the measurement is available, state the number of standard
deviations that your result differs from the accepted value

Be sure that your tables are well labeled. Do not use symbols without using words to
explain the symbols.

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Do not make your graphs or tables too large. It might be easier for the reader if several
smaller graphs were on the same page so that relationships between the data can be
examined.

Decide how much information should be on one graph. For example, do not make three
separate graphs when you can draw three lines on one graph. This would allow trends to
be noticed which would otherwise be overlooked. Conversely, do not put too much, or
unrelated, data on a single graph. This can make the graph confusing.

Check these points in your write-up:

Make sure there are enough words in the Results sections. You should not simply create
tables and graphs without explaining them to your reader in words. A busy grader does
not want to spend time figuring out what your headings mean, or that a table is
summarizing the energy balance around an unspecified control volume. Therefore, follow
the following format for your reports.

Each table and figure must be numbered, and given a short descriptive title (Ex: Table 1:
Energy balance for Condenser).

Each table and figure must have one paragraph which describes the content of the table or
figure in a few descriptive sentences. What information is the reader supposed to get out
of the table? Remember to assume that your supervisor is reading this report. What
information do they need?

These tables, figures, and paragraphs should form a consistent narrative called the
"Results". This means that the paragraphs should be put in a logical order so that one is
linked to the other. Perhaps you would start with the material balances, and then the
energy balances, etc.

This sounds like a lot of work when creating a table or figure, and it is. However, you
should spend time organizing your information before creating tables and figures in order
to combine related information on one table or graph. Then, you will have less items to
write about, and it will be easier for your reader to examine the relationships between
your data.

Caption of Figures should be put below the figure and for table its caption should be
above the table.

Discussion: This is the most important part of your report. In engineering

experimentation, more often than not, the measured data will not be in exact agreement
with the expected theoretical results. This is because theoretical results are based on
mathematical modeling. Further, in order to make a solveable mathematical model, it is
necessary to make some assumptions. The more the actual physical system differs from a
mathematical model, the greater the experimental error. Your discussion should explain
the scientific basis for any differences between the actual experimental results and those
predicted from theory. Do not blame everything on “human errors”. Moreover, you
should strive to find ways by which such errors may exist and may be eliminated in future
tests. This is one of the keys to being a good experimentalist. Therefore recommendations
for the improvement of the experimental procedure or results or any aspect of the
experiment should be included in this section.

Conclusion: Summarize, in a paragraph or two, what you conclude from the results of
your experiment and whether they are what you expected them to be. Compare the results
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 with theoretical expectations and include percent error when appropriate. Don't use terms
such as "fairly close" and "pretty good;" give explicit quantitative deviations from the
expected result. Evaluate whether these deviations fall within your expected errors and
state possible explanations for unusual deviations. Discuss and comment on the results
and conclusions drawn, including the sources of the errors and the methods used for
estimating them. Include brief answers to the specific questions asked in the lab
instructions.

Appendices: Include a separate appendix for every major item that is too distracting to
include in the main report. Anything that could interrupt the flow of thought in the main
report, but which is nevertheless important for a thorough understanding of the
experiment, should be placed in an Appendix.

References: Citations of relevant theoretical background material and other related work
should be included in the reference list.

4. Some additional list of advice

Here are some additional lists of advice to write a good report.

 Checks for any spelling errors
 Proof read carefully to see if you have any words out
 Verbs has to agree with their subject
 No sentences fragments
 Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice
 Use word correctly, irregardless of how others use them
 Avoid cutting and pasting materials from references other than figures that
must be referenced when used