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How to Write a Laboratory Report

“The primary function of a lab report is communication; you are transferring
your knowledge and insight about the experiment to someone else so they can
critically evaluate whether or not they agree with you.”

The primary means by which scientists develop testable ideas (hypothesis) and their
experiments is through reading journal articles. Journal articles are really nothing more than
highly developed lab reports, thus your ability to construct an effective lab report is really
more about scientific communication rather than simply recording what you have done in the
lab (the record of lab activity is the lab notebook). It is a formal presentation of your work,
and like most formal events, requires you to pay attention to the presentation.

Lab reports follow a fairly set format. One function of this format is to help develop the
reader’s understanding of the work so they can evaluate the importance and validity of the
results. In other words, a lab report should help the reader understand:

1. The existing body of knowledge (or context) within which the current experiment is being
conducted;
2. The specific experimental methods and procedures used.
3. The results of those experiments and how they have been interpreted with respect to the
existing body of knowledge.

Conveniently, these points of understanding are usually organized into specific sections of a
lab report that are described below:

Format
The content of a lab report usually consists of the following:

1. Observations and Results (see manual)

2. Analysis
3. Conclusion
4. Literature cited/References

Introduction

The introduction defines the subject of the report. It must outline the scientific purpose(s) or
objective(s) for the research performed and give the reader sufficient background to understand
the rest of the report. Care should be taken to limit the background to whatever is pertinent to
the experiment. A good introduction will answer several questions, including the following:
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Why was this study performed?

Answers to this question may be derived from observations of nature or from the literature.
What knowledge already exists about this subject?
What is the specific purpose of the study?

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All of this means background information, maybe a little history, reaction schemes, etc. But keep
it short and general.

Analysis

This is the most important section of your report. This is where you give a detailed account
of what happened in the experiment. This section should not just be a restatement of the
results but should emphasize interpretation of the data, relating them to existing theory
and knowledge. This interpretation may be supported by chemical reactions/equations or
calculated values. A common way to proceed is to go through the procedure while
discussing points of interest. The most important question here is, why?

If you obtained poor results, the discussion section is your opportunity to hypothesize as to
why. (Do not anymore mention the goofiness of your lab partner.)

To have an idea of what an analysis look like, see the example on page 3.

Conclusion
In longer laboratory reports, a "Conclusion" section often appears. Whereas the "Analysis"
section has discussed the results individually, the "Conclusion" section discusses the results
in the context of the entire experiment. Most of the time the conclusion is a single
paragraph that sums up what happened in the experiment, whether your hypothesis was
accepted or rejected, and what this means.
Literature Cited

This section lists all articles or books cited in your report. It is not the same as a bibliography,
which simply lists references regardless of whether they were cited in the paper. The listing should
be alphabetized by the last names of the authors. Different journals require different formats for
citing literature. The format that includes the most information is given in the following examples:

For articles:
Fox, J.W. 1988. Nest-building behavior of the catbird, Dumetella carolinensis. Journal of Ecology
47: 113-17.

For Books:
Bird, W.Z. 1990. Ecological aspects of fox reproduction. Berlin: Guttenberg Press.

For chapters in books:

Smith, C.J. 1989. Basal cell carcinomas. In Histological aspects of cancer, ed. C.D. Wilfred, pp.
2

278-91. Boston: Medical Press.

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When citing references in the text, do not use footnotes; instead, refer to articles by the author's
name and the date the paper was published. For example:

1. Fox in 1988 investigated the hormones on the nest-building behavior of catbirds.

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2. Hormones are known to influence the nest-building behavior of catbirds (Fox, 1988).

When citing papers that have two authors, both names must be listed. When three or more
authors are involved, the Latin et al. (et alia) meaning "and others" may be used. A paper by
Smith, Lynch, Merrill, and Beam published in 1989 would be cited in the text as:

Smith et al. (1989) have shown that...

This short form is for text use only. In the Literature Cited, all names would be listed, usually last
name preceding initials.

There are a number of style manuals that provide detailed directions for writing scientific
papers.

Adapted from Warren D. Dolphin, “Writing Lab Reports and Scientific Writing”, Iowa State University
(http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/maderinquiry/writing.html), and B. Nowak Thompson
“Writing a Lab Report”, Cornell College
(http://people.cornellcollege.edu/bnowakthompson/pdfs/labReport.pdf)

Sample Laboratory Analysis and Conclusion

Bunsen Burner

Analysis

The Bunsen burner is a device used to provide heat in the laboratory. It has several parts. It
has a gas inlet which serve as the means of entry of gas from the source and an air hole as the
means of entry of air. The gas regulator controls the gas supply and the amount of fuel-air
mixture. The collar regulates the air supply. The barrel is where gas and air mix. The Bunsen
burner can produce two kinds of flame- the non-luminous flame which is a hotter flame, and
a luminous flame, a cooler flame.

Flame is a product of combustion when air and gas react. Yellow flame is a luminous flame.
This was observed when the air hole was closed or when there was not enough air supply.
Deposits of soot in the evaporating dish was observed, an evidence that there was un-reacted
or un-combusted gas. An incomplete combustion occurred. A blue-colored flame was
produced when an air hole was opened, thus giving enough supply of air to react with the gas
resulting to complete combustion. This is the non-luminous flame. A non-luminous flame was
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observed to have two to three cones. The inner cone has low temperature as indicated by the
failure of immediate ignition of the unlighted matchstick. This cone still has incomplete
combustion as shown in the production of non-luminous flame at the open end of the glass
tubing.

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Conclusion

The Bunsen burner is a device used to provide heat in the laboratory. It has several parts
namely; gas inlet, airhole, collar, barrel, gas spud, and base. It produces 2 types of flame. A
non-luminous, blue flame is observed when there is complete combustion and a luminous,
yellow flame is observed when there is incomplete combustion.

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