Laboratory Report Template Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

This guide is designed for undergraduate science, technology and engineering students. In the science, technology and engineering fields, laboratory reports are used when communicating about 'an investigation' or 'research'. Becoming competent in producing laboratory or experimental reports as an undergraduate student will assist you to develop the skills required to write more extended and increasingly original research reports that are usually required from 3rd year onwards. In your report you should aim to provide a factual and accurate account of an investigation: what you did what you found what your results mean most schools provide a structure or 'template' for you to follow and there will be some variation from school to school. You then read these sections, carry out the investigation and record your results and interpretations. Each school should have its own publication that details the requirements and this is usually made available to undergraduate students in the early stages of a course.

If you are unaware of these publications you need to check if these were part of a set of publications for a prerequisite subject you did not do. This advice also applies to masters students who may not have completed their undergraduate degree at this university. This template provides a clean structured format for writing a report based on a laboratory experiment. The structure follows the typical flow of information required in a laboratory report: the objective of the experiment, methods, data gathered, results and discussion. This template would best suit an students write up of an experiment at a university or school.

This laboratory book template was originally created by the linux and unix users group at virginia tech wiki but has been extensively modified for this website. Last update: december 29, 2006 this is a guide to get you started on writing a formal laboratory report. It should not be followed blindly your situation may call for modifications to this general template. When in doubt, ask your instructor! for more information on writing a formal laboratory report, please see the chemlab document on this topic. An example of a completed formal laboratory report is available click here to open it. general instructions for use of the template save the template to your disk. The template is a microsoft word file that you should be able to open from any university computer.

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Replace underlined text with your specific information in the appropriate face i. You would enter your title not underlined, but in bold and then delete the word title. Any information in parentheses is there for information purposes only delete it in your final document.

You should delete sections that your instructor has told you that you don't need, or that you have nothing for. Scientific writing is just as important as scientific investigation or experimenting.   although the major part of scientific investigation takes place in the laboratory connecting equipment together, repairing, obtaining supplies and samples, checking each apparatus for consistency, calibration, and finally data collection by running the experiment a great deal of time is spent to present the results in a concise, objective, critical and conclusive format called laboratory report similar to research paper.   therefore, a well organized laboratory report is much more effective and influential than one without a structure.   while ineffective writing can turn off the readers, a well written laboratory report can have impacts on your reputation, chance of employment or promotion.   you may also draw the attention of the scientific community to your work and retain them as your readers.

sections of a laboratory report: a laboratory report usually have several sections identified by titles.   a typical report would include such sections as title, introduction, procedure, results, and discussion/conclusion.   if you are using a computer to type your work, section headings should be in boldface.   if the purpose of the experiment is to measure the gravitational acceleration of the earth using pendulum as the experimental apparatus, the title should be like measurement of the gravitational acceleration using simple pendulum .

Avoid the as the first word in the title for it will lead to misleading searches when one uses the database. introduction: state the purpose of the experiment in general terms. For example, it is possible to measure the gravitational acceleration using the oscillations of a simple pendulum.   reader will look for some reminder of the basic information relating to this particular area.   this can be done by giving him/her a brief summary of the existing state of knowledge.