Laboratory Report Guidelines

Students are required to complete a lab report for each scheduled lab experiment. Because there
are no quizzes or tests associated with the laboratory sections, the grade they earn in lab is based
on their submitted lab reports. In order to earn the maximum grade, they must turn in a complete,
concise, and thoughtful report. All lab reports must be submitted in Blackboard. No emailed lab
reports will be accepted. The lab report requirements vary by specific course.

PHYS 103/104N: Individual labs posted to Blackboard serve as both the student’s lab manual
and lab report. All labs are digital do not require being printed. Answers to the questions
contained in the packets should be typed into the file, saved, and submitted in Blackboard.
Some reports will require drawings, which can be done in a word processing program or by
hand. As required, pictures, data tables, and graphs should be embedded within the report at
appropriate places.

PHYS 101/102/111/112/231/232N: Lab reports must be typed using one-inch margins, 11 pt

or 12 pt standard font (Times New Roman, Cambria, Calibri, Arial) and single-spacing (1.15
spacing is also acceptable). When possible, all equations and calculations should be typed
within the report. Only the equations, calculations, and information in the data tables may be
hand-written. It is up to the Lab Instructor to accept other portions of the report that have been
handwritten.

As required, pictures, data tables, and graphs should be embedded within the report at
appropriate places. Care should be taken to format the report for readability. A report which
uses overly large graphs, large margins, and double spacing just to “take up space” will be
penalized.

The length of a type-written lab report will vary dependent on the number of parts contained in
an experiment. The report should be a minimum of 2, and a maximum of 6 pages long—the
cover page does not count towards page total.
 General Lab Report Format
[Cover Page]

(Course # (i.e. PHYS 111/112N or PHYS 226/227N or PHYS 231/232N))

(Experiment Number and Title)
Submitted by: (Your Full Name)
Lab Partners: (Full Names)
Day, Date and Time of Lab:
Lab Instructor: (Full Name)

[Main Body Format] [Note: Students should include the section headers in their report.]

ATTENDANCE (10 pts)

10% of your laboratory report grade will be reflected as your attendance.

INTRODUCTION (10 pts)

In one concise paragraph, the students should tell in their own words what they are
trying to prove or test in the experiment (i.e. the purpose or theory). They should briefly
explain the procedure they used to collect the data for that part. Do NOT copy the lab
manual procedures word-for-word. If you need to include more details, you should
reference the lab manual, not copy it.

DATA (20 pts)

As required by the experiment procedures, students must show the calculations they
made and equations they used in this section. Dependent on the experiment performed,
they may be required to attach to the lab report various graphs, diagrams, and data
tables, etc., developed or saved during the lab.

DATA ANALYSIS (40 pts)

For each part of the experiment, students should explain their analysis of their collected
data. They should identify which part of the experiment their analysis is addressing and
note any trends or unexpected results.

CONCLUSION (20 pts)

In one-two concise paragraphs, students should briefly review the lab objective(s) and
note the success or failure of their experimentation in relation to the objective(s). If there
were any problems, they should suggest some specific solutions that could potentially
improve the lab results. Students quoting “human error” is NOT an acceptable diagnosis of
problems within an experiment.