General Instructions for making a laboratory report.

Your Lab Report will be evaluated with Criteria B and C. This means that your report
must contain a description that has to respond to each of the points of the two
following criteria:

Criterion B: Inquiring and designing

You should be able to:
i. explain a problem or question to be tested by a scientific investigation
ii. formulate a testable hypothesis and explain it using correct scientific reasoning
iii. explain how to manipulate the variables (independent, dependent and controlled
variables), and explain how sufficient, relevant data will be collected
iv. design a logical, complete and safe method in which he or she selects appropriate materials
and equipment.

Criterion C: Processing and evaluating

You should be able to:

i. correctly collect, organize, transform and present data in numerical and/or visual
forms
ii. accurately interpret data and explain results using correct scientific reasoning
iii. evaluate the validity of a hypothesis based on the outcome of the scientific
investigation
iv. evaluate the validity of the method
v. explain improvements or extensions to the method.

HOW TO WRITE YOUR LAB REPORT

Please, when writing your report, follow the points indicated in each criterion.

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 Criterion B: Inquiring and designing
i. explain a problem or question to be tested by a scientific investigation
At this point you must clearly indicate the title of your research. This is essential since
it marks the objective of your research. The title should be in bold and in a larger font
than the text used in your report.
After the title, you can add a research question or a problem that you are analyzing,
everything will depend on the type of research that you will carry out.
Add why you are doing this research. What is the purpose of your experiment or
research?

ii. formulate a testable hypothesis and explain it using correct scientific reasoning
A hypothesis is made BEFORE YOU DO YOUR EXPERIMENTAL WORK, and YOU CAN
CHANGE IT after analyzing your results, since your results can give you new ideas to
develop NEW hypotheses.
The HYPOTHESIS is what you PROPOSE about:
. how to solve your problem or research question.
. what you expect your experiment will give.
. how to improve your research or experiment.
Your hypothesis must have a scientific basis, this means a SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND: it
is NOT just “what you think” will happen, but you have to include scientific
background that supports your hypothesis. This scientific background you write in your
hypothesis MUST be properly REFERENCED. For this, please cite the sources of information
consulted using "IN TEXT" citation. Put these references at the end of your report under the
title “REFERENCES:”
After your experiments you can obtain unexpected results or you decide to test new
things, that´s why you can propose more than one hypothesis throughout your lab
report. This can be done in Criterion C, point iii.
It is important that you understand that THE HYPOTHESIS WILL CONDITION YOUR
EXPERIMENT. What does it mean?
Example: Your research objective is to find out why a type of water is unhealthy.
Imagine that you make two different hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: The water may contain pathogenic bacteria.
Hypothesis 2: The water may contain toxic chemicals.
Why will each of these hypotheses then condition your experiment?
If you want to analyze hypothesis 1, then you will do a microbiological study of the
water. You will try to isolate bacteria, and you will study the types of bacteria in the
water to see if they are pathogenic or not.
If you want to analyze hypothesis 2, then you will have to carry out a chemical analysis
that will have nothing to do with microbiology.

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In this way, you can see that depending on the hypothesis you propose, your
experimental approach will be completely different.
Based on all the above, proposing a scientifically reasoned hypothesis is essential to
continue with your research or experiment because it will determine the types of
experiments you will perform. So, PROPOSE REASONED HYPOTHESIS.

iii. explain how to manipulate the variables (related with the independent variables),
and explain how sufficient, relevant data will be collected (related with dependent
variables).
Let´s first understand what are each type of variable:
INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: it is what you change in your experiment and that will have a
consequence in your results. For example, if you want to test the hypothesis of
whether or not there are bacteria in water, you can use different water samples, or
decide to use different culture media (substance used to growth bacteria) or use
different growth temperatures: all of these are INDEPENDENT variables.
DEPENDENT VARIABLES: This is what you observe as a result of your experiment. These
are the observed consequences of having changed the independent variables. In our
example, the dependent variable will be “type of bacteria observed”. Since it will
depend on the water sample used, the culture medium used, or the growth
temperature used (independent variables)
However, everything that does NOT vary, and that is necessary to keep constant and
controlled, will be the CONTROLLED VARIABLES. In our example, a controlled variable
may be "growth time" of bacteria. In this way I will choose a growth time, for example
24 hours, which will be the same for all the growing conditions I will test.
IN YOUR LAB REPORT WRITE DOWN THE VARIABLES OF YOUR EXPERIMENT.
Point iii also says: explain how to manipulate the variables: This means that you have
to explain how you will modify the INDEPENDENT VARIABLES in your experiment.
What will you modify? How will you do it and in what quantities? In the example: how
you will modify the growth temperature? How many different mediums will you use?
How many temperatures will you test? TRY TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU DECIDED TO TRY
THOSE DIFFERENT CONDITIONS.
It also says: explain how sufficient, relevant data will be collected. This means that
you must explain how you will collect your results, and also how many results you are
going to collect. That is, you must observe and collect data from your DEPENDENT
VARIABLES. It is not the same to make 5 measurements or to make 20 measurements
of a given result. The number of dependent variable measurements could be very
important for the results to be reliable.

iv. design a logical, complete and safe method in which he or she selects appropriate
materials and equipment.
First, write a list of materials needed: That is, you must include a detailed list with all
the materials used in your experiment. For example:

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. 100 ml measuring cylinder
. 50 ml beaker
. NaCl
. Ethanol 96%
…

After the list of materials: the objective of this point is that you describe in detail all
the steps that you have carried out in your experiment. Explain it step by step,
WITHOUT including “We” or “I”, that is, the description must be impersonal. In some
key steps, you have to explain what is this step for, or why you add certain chemical
(write: “Clarification” and explain the purpose of this step).

For example:
1. Weigh 5 grams of strawberries.
2. In a mortar, homogenize the strawberries by adding 5 ml of extraction buffer.
(Clarification: Extraction buffer contains detergent, which is important to break down
cellular membranes and favoring the release of DNA from the nucleus).
3. …
In this point, you can include photographs or drawings that accompany the steps you
describe, this will help the reader to reproduce the experiment in any laboratory.
Remember to reference the pictures into your text by saying “… as seen in picture 2”
or “Figure 3 shows…”. Also, write a very brief explanation below each figure or
picture.

This point also says "safe method", because you should include the safety materials
you have used or precautions you have to take into account when doing your
experiment.

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Criterion C: Processing and evaluating

i. correctly collect, organize, transform and present data in numerical and/or visual
forms

At this point, as indicated in the title, you must present your data. “Data” means
PRESENTING THE RESULTS of your experiment or investigation, or WHAT YOU HAVE
OBSERVED (ie. THE DEPENDENT VARIABLES) and, if possible, show how these
dependent variables changed because of the independent variables.

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The presentation of results can be done as tables, graphs, photographs, drawings (or
a combination of these). What is important is that all the results should be presented
in a clear, correct and organized way.

As you will see in the next point, you will have to do an analysis of the results
presented in here…

ii. accurately interpret data and explain results using correct scientific reasoning
You have just presented the results in the previous point using pictures, graphs or
tables. So, it is logical that now and immediately below that results, you explain and
interpret them.
To do this, you should use phrases like "Figure 5 shows how an increase in magnesium
concentration improves the PCR performance by 5%...", or "The data shown in Table 4,
indicate that..." or “As observed in picture 3, the amount of DNA was dependent on…”
Please (and as you can read in the title of this point) use scientific reasoning. That is,
try to explain your results by reasoning them, for this, you may need to consult sources
of information so that your analysis is richer and more scientific.

iii. evaluate the validity of a hypothesis based on the outcome of a scientific

investigation

In point ii of criterion B you wrote a hypothesis. This is the moment, after having
carried out your experiment, to discuss whether the hypothesis you made was correct
or not.
If the hypothesis was correct: WRITE your INITIAL HYPOTHESIS and indicate how that
hypothesis was verified with the results obtained. If your hypothesis was partially
correct, explain what you observed in addition to what you predicted.
If your hypothesis was not correct: WRITE your INITIAL HYPOTHESIS and indicate how
the results demonstrated something different. Then, if possible, WRITE THE NEW
HYPOTHESIS YOU HAVE that could explain the results obtained. Remember to
REFERENCE all the scientific background supporting your new hypothesis.

iv. evaluate the validity of the method based on the outcome of a scientific
investigation
Important! You should NOT write: "My methods were correct because they allowed
me to see the expected results"... no, no.
What you SHOULD do: Discuss whether the entire procedure carried out was efficient
in order to meet the objectives of your experiment or investigation.

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For example, if your goal was to extract DNA, discuss if your methods (experimental
procedure) were ok or not, analyzing the influence of the independent variables:
The extraction method "A" allowed us to obtain an amount "X” mg of DNA. However, if
compared with method “B”, this was less efficient because we obtained “Y” mg of
DNA. The advantage of method “A” is that we used …”
You can see in the previous example: how the methods used, the advantages or
disadvantages, comparisons, are discussed and EXPLAINED WITH SCIENTIFIC BASIS:
for this, you should again do some research about why that results were obtained, or
propose a new HYPOTHESIS about why those results were obtained.

IT´S VERY IMPORTANT AT THIS POINT to: Write the CONCLUSIONS OF YOUR WORK.
The conclusions must be directly related to your results (please understand that,
whether positive or negative, YOU CAN ALWAYS WRITE CONCLUSIONS)
Example of conclusions: After the microbiological analysis of the water, we can
conclude that it contains 5 different bacterial strains, these are... However, none of the
strains turns out to be pathogenic (describe the strains, why are not pathogenic, and
all this info should be referenced), so the toxicity of the water is not due to the
bacteria it contains. Then, the new hypothesis that the water may contain toxic
chemical substances should be analyzed”

As you can see from the example, your methods may not be entirely good to reach
your goals (to find out why the water is toxic), however you can make conclusions. All
this make you think of new experiments to continue your investigation, leading to the
next point...

v. explain improvements or extensions to the method that would benefit the

scientific investigation.

Here you must explain:

Improvements: If the methods you used were not correct, or you can think of how to
improve them based on the experiment you did, at this point you should explain that.
Explain clearly and as much in detail as possible how you would improve the
experiment you did.

Extensions: The previous example of “water analysis” is a good example of how to

extend an investigation… Perhaps you do not get the expected result, so you think of
another hypothesis and therefore you proceed to analyze it. Or even with nice results,
you have an idea about how to go deep into your investigation and you propose new
experiments: these are extensions! It is about going beyond the experiment you did,
and proposing how you would continue with your research. And that's what science

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is all about, continuing to investigate to delve into the topic you are investigating. So,
you must have imagination and come up with something interesting to continue the
research you did.

FINALLY.
Write the title: REFERENCES. And write all your references in APA format. You have to
use “in text citation”