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This is a guide for producing a formal lab report

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This is a guide for producing a formal lab report.  Your lab report must have the following headings, provided here in red font, to indicate which section is being presented. Sections must be provided in the same order.

Title/Class/Author Information

In this section include:

• Provide a one- to two-line title that describes the experiment. This needs to be descriptive. 
• Your name (last name, first name)
• Names of all members of your lab group if you are completing the report as a group
• The date for the submission
• The course number, section, and professor's name  

 

 

Abstract  

Write the abstract last. In the Abstract include:

• One or two sentences introducing the concept
• One of two sentences about the methodology
• One of two sentences on the most important results
• One of two sentences on your conclusions

 

Introduction

In the introduction include among other things:

• Thorough background information. To do this well library/background research is a must.
• The objective of the experiments. What are you trying to accomplish? 
• Explanation of importance of the work.
• Explanation of your hypotheses at the end of the introduction.  For BIO59, all of your null (H_o) and alternative (H_a) hypotheses are presented here.

 

Methods and Materials

In this section provide a detailed description of all the procedures that you followed to set-up the experiments, conduct the experiments, and analyze the data (not the actual analyses). Provide a flow chart if you think it will help.  The logic here is that anyone should be able to read this section and conduct the experiment exactly the way you did. 

Results 

Present all of your qualitative and quantitative observations in this section.  Take advantage of tables, graphs (different but appropriate types). Each graph and table should have a heading (title) as well as labeled axes if necessary. They all must be described using text in the results section as well.  All of the analyses of your results are to be provided in this section as well.  Provide photographs (figures) in this section if you have any.  Avoid putting raw data in this section. Provide summary of the raw data instead. All statistical analyses are also provided here.

Discussion

This section also involves quite a bit of background research.  In this section, write about the analyses of the results. More importantly, write about your interpretation of the results. Here are a series of question you might want to focus on among other questions: Do you or do you not reject any of the null hypotheses? Why?  Compare different aspects of the results.  Are they consistent or contradictory? If you feel there are sources of error in the experiment (human or equipment error for example), explain it there.  Did you reach the objectives that you aimed to test out?  Can the experiment be improved? How?  What other research has been done in this area?  Are others’ results consistent with yours?  What is the relevance of your results to others’ results? What is the importance of your findings?

Conclusions (Optional)

Provide a brief summary of your paper.

References

Look at a paper in a peer reviewed science (biology) journal and follow any of the formats. In addition to providing all of the references in this section, all work needs to be cited throughout the report as well. Please look at an original journal article for an example.  Do not use quotes anywhere in your paper.

Appendices (Optional)

You can provide raw data, supporting but tangential data, or text that is important but does not really belong to the body of the report in this section

The table below summarizes the sections and provides a guide for length of the written work.

In your formal lab report include all of the following components:

 

Component	Approximate length for this specific lab
Title/Author/Class Information	One to two lines for title, the same for author/class info
Abstract	Maximum one page
Introduction	One to one and half pages
Methods and Materials	Maximum one page
Results	Length will vary
Discussion	One to one and half pages
Conclusion	One paragraph
References	A few lines depending on the number of references
Appendices	Length will vary

 

 

 

 

 

The table below provides a guide for when each section should be completed

While you will not submit any of the formal report sections for grading until the due date (when you submit the full report for grading), here's a time guideline for what to prepare and when. These are internal deadlines you can set for your work as you prepare the sections. As usual I am available to answer any questions you may have during the virtual meetings.

 

Time Guideline for Formal Report
Formal Report component	Week
I. Title Page	Week 4
II. Abstract	Week 9
III. Introduction (must include background information and citations)	Week 6
IV. Methods and Materials. Write this section, as if you were performing the experiment.	Week 5
V. Results (must include data analysis, graphs, write up of results).	Weeks 5-7
VI. Discussion (must include background information and citations)	Week 8
VII. References (APA format)	Week 9
* Data analysis and literature review should begin in week 3 and continue until the end.

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