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INTRODUCTION Laboratory instructors strive continuously to improve the writing of undergraduate lab reports, and success requires a communal effort by several instructors and many students. To allow coordinated instruction, the faculty must define the learning objectives and agree on a common instructional strategy. Students can then be guided in a consistent fashion toward proficient technical writing. This guidance should include a manual incorporating a uniform writing standard that represents industrial and academic practice. Instruction can then refer to a single consensus standard. Consistent grading and feedback based on this standard can then reinforce the instruction. However, the instruction cannot be planned, nor the writing standard be developed without a practical objective. The practical objective is the kind of technical writing and production quality that fits the needs of the curriculum and professional practice and that can be expected from undergraduates. The objective is defined in terms of representative report types and the corresponding contents, formats, and production qualities. Without such a common and well defined objective, successive instructors will waste time and frustrate the students by presenting and requiring report types and production qualities that differ only marginally from the consensus standards while generating continual confusion.
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A laboratory report has three main functions: (1) To provide a record of the experiments and raw data included in the report, (2) To provide sufficient information to reproduce or extend the data, and (3) To analyze the data, present conclusions and make recommendations based on the experimental work. General Comments: The single most important requirement for a laboratory report is clarity. Imagine that your audience is one of your classmates who missed that experiment. If you are using a word processor for your lab report, then use the spelling and grammar checkers. The grammar check can be annoying because often technical sentences are wordy and complex, but it will help you avoid using too many passive sentences. In general, passive sentences are less understandable. However, grammar check will not assess clarity, and it will ignore simple errors. (I do not doubt there are still mistakes in this document I have run it through spelling and grammar checks.) Many technical writers prefer to write sentences with passive verbs. A simple example: "The spring constant k was found from the slope to be 3.02 N/m." If you run this sentence through the grammar check, it will tell you that "was found" is a verb in the passive voice. To change this to an active voice you could write: "The spring constant k is the slope, 3.02 N/m." Not every sentence has to be in an active voice. What you want is a report that is readable. Lab Report Structure: I. Cover Sheet: This page has the course number and assigned lab section, the title of the experiment, your name, your lab partner's names, the date that the lab was performed and your TA's name. II. Abstract: The purpose of an abstract in a scientific paper is to help a reader decide if your paper is of interest to him/her. (This section is the executive summary in a corporation or government report; it is often the only section that a manager reads.) The abstract should be able to stand by itself, and it should be brief. Generally, it consists of three parts which answer these questions: What did you do?-A statement of the purpose of the experiment, a concise description of the experiment and physics principles investigated. What were your results?-Highlight the most significant results of the experiment. What do these results tell you?-Depending on the type of experiment, this is conclusions and implications of the results or it may be lessons learned form the experiment. Write the abstract after all the other sections are completed. (You need to know everything in the report before you can write a summary of it.) III.
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