Can You Use We In A Lab Report

What is a science lab report?

A science lab report is a structured way of communicating the outcomes of your practical work.

The structure of a typical lab study includes the following sections:

Aim and Hypothesis - Why you lot conducted the applied work.
Method - How you conducted the practical work and how whatever data processed.
Results - What was the data, process or product obtained from the practical piece of work.
Discussion - How your results addressed your aim and hypothesis.
Conclusion - What was the overall consequence of your applied work and how practice your finding chronicle to the larger body of scientific noesis.

You can use the common written report writing techniques outlined beneath, afterwards e'er checking the specific details of your assignment.

Title

The championship describes the purpose of the practical piece of work in precise terms.

The majority of your applied work will involve measurements, observations or the creation of some object of interest. For case: The Period of a Simple Pendulum

It is clear from the above lab report title that it describes the measurement of a property called a 'period', and the object of interest is a 'simple pendulum'.

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Abstract

The abstract provides a brief overview of the practical piece of work, including key results and conclusions.

Continue your abstract short, i.due east. about one paragraph or 250 to 500 words. It must be clear enough that the reader can understand a summary of the report without needing to read the residuum of it.

In general, the abstruse should answer six questions. Addressing each question only requires 1 to two sentences:

Why was the experiment conducted? (big-picture show/existent-world view).
What specific problem/enquiry question was beingness addressed?
What methods were used to solve the problem/answer the question?
What results were obtained?
What practise these results mean?
How do the results answer the overall question or meliorate our understanding of the trouble?

Shorter lab reports may not require an abstract, so cheque your guidelines kickoff.

Introduction

The introduction is where you innovate the reader to the broader context of your practical work and so narrow downward to the hypothesis, aims or research question you intend to accost.

Yous should besides succinctly explain relevant theory and discuss any relevant laws, equations or theorems.

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Method

The method section is where you describe what you actually did during the practical work. You need to describe the actions you took in a way that someone from your field has enough information to replicate the procedure and reach a similar consequence.

You must also include whatever unplanned changes to the original process which occurred during the execution of the experiment. A dandy way to proceed runway of this is to utilize a lab notebook during the practical work to note whatever change you make.

Plough lab instructions into a lab report method

A common fault students make is copying the instructions their teachers provide directly into their method section. You will generally be provided with a fix of instructions to complete your applied work. These instructions are NOT written in the style of a laboratory report. A typical fix of instructions usually includes:

How the apparatus and equipment were set (due east.g. experimental set-upwardly), commonly including a diagram.
A list of materials used.
Steps used to collect the information.
Any experimental difficulties encountered and how they were resolved or worked around.

Below is an example of the instructions provided to a student to carry out a first year chemical science experiment.

Lab instructions

Use a clean pipette to measure 25ml of HCl(aq) into a 100ml conical flask.
Rinse a burette with standardised NaOH(aq) and clamp it to the antiphon stand as shown Figure ii.
Fill up the burette to the 0.0ml marking with standardised NaOH(aq). Remember to take the reading from the centre of the meniscus, and from eye level. Tape the actual reading in Table 1.
Place a sail of white paper under the burette. This is to make it easier to detect the colour alter during the reaction.
Place the conical flask onto the white paper and add five drop of universal indicator to the flask.
Titrate the standardised NaOH(aq) into the flask with abiding swirling until there is an observable colour change. (Your teacher will provide boosted guidance on the specific technique).

Figure two. Experimental fix-upwardly for titration (taken from Carroll 2017)

Phrases are used hither to specifically instruct the student who may exist performing the technique for the first fourth dimension. This is different from a lab written report where you are reporting on what you did. For example, the instructions say:

'utilize a articulate pipette…'
'rinse the burette…'
'recall to take the reading from the heart of the meniscus…'

These are non appropriate phrases to include in the lab report.

As well note that the linguistic communication of the instructions is in the present tense in bullet points. The method section of your written report should instead exist written in the by tense as a cohesive paragraph.

Withal, there are means you lot tin can change the language of the instructions to write your method department.

Beneath is an example of how these lab instructions were summarised into a method in a laboratory study:

Lab report: method

25ml of HCl(aq) was pipetted into a 100ml conical flask. A burette was then filled with standardised NaOH(aq). A sheet of white paper was placed under the burette. The conical flask was placed onto the white paper and 5 drops of universal indicator was added to the flask. The standardised NaOH(aq) was titrated into the flask with constant swirling until there was an observable colour change.

How to alter lab instructions into a lab method

How to use a passive vox in lab reports

While most science units require that yous report in the passive vocalization, some require the agile voice. In the example beneath, the first person plural is used in the active vox, i.e. "we initiated". Usage of the agile voice is accustomed in some disciplines, but not others. Check your unit data or talk to your teacher.

Instruction	Your report
Initiate the bicarbonate feed pump.	We initiated the bicarbonate feed pump. (agile voice)
	The bicarbonate feed pump was initiated. (passive vox)

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While in science the passive vox is by and large preferred, some disciplines may allow or prefer the active vox. Read samples of student reports beneath and identify which examples are written in passive vocalism, and which apply active voice.

Results

The results department is where you nowadays a summary of the information collected during your experiments. This section is non just a copy of the raw data from your lab notebook. Rather, information technology may involve adding, analysis and the drawing up of tables and figures to present your information.

Calculations

When yous take your raw data and perform some sort of mathematical operation to modify it, it is good practice to evidence the equations y'all used in your assay, as well as i worked example using each equation. Calculations that are very long or repeated multiple times are usually included in an appendix (see below).

In some disciplines, if formulae are used, information technology is common to number them as equations:

Mistake analysis

Error analysis is a type of calculation that indicates the accuracy of your results, unremarkably done by determining the level of uncertainty. The sources of error that you need to consider will vary betwixt experiments and disciplines, just you will usually need to gene in both random and systematic errors.

Whatsoever analysis and calculations of the errors or uncertainties in the experiment are included in the results department unless otherwise specified. In some disciplines the assay and uncertainty calculations are presented under their own heading. Bank check the requirements given in your unit of measurement information or lab manual, or ask your tutor if yous are unsure where to identify calculations

Tables and figures

Nigh numerical data are presented using tables or figures. These need to exist clearly labelled following the standard conventions for captions, and titles must tell the reader precisely what data is existence presented.

If a measurement is stated in the title, in a column of a table or on the centrality of a graph and it has units associated with it, these must be included (usually in brackets).

The table below presents a series of measurements collected during an experiment. Notice the units in every column with the brackets. Some measurements such equally pH or C_p do not take units.

The figure beneath is a graphical representation of aerodynamic measurements. Notice the axes are labelled with appropriate units and the explanation at the bottom of the effigy clearly describes what the figure is about.

Figures can also be a broad variety of images. The figure below is an paradigm taken from a blazon of molecular microscope. Observe the caption at the bottom of the effigy clearly describing the effigy and the specification of the magnification of the microscope.

If you lot must apply figures from some other source, signal in the citation whether you take modified it in whatsoever fashion to avoid bunco or plagiarism.

Word

The word section is where you interpret and evaluate your results. To do this y'all demand to summarise your cardinal results, summarise unexpected results, and explain how your results chronicle to your aims, hypotheses or literature as stated at the start of the written report. Here are some tips on writing give-and-take sections:

Summarise key results
Identify and depict any trends or patterns you have observed. If these are numerical trends, state the values. Avoid using unspecific words such as 'higher, lower, increased, decreased', which can make the information vague.

Compare the experimental results with any predictions you fabricated.

Interpret what the results hateful in relation to the aims, research question(s) or hypothesis.
Summarise central unexpected results
Describe whatever results which were unexpected or didn't friction match your predictions.

Suggest explanations for unexpected results based on the theory and procedures of the experiment.

Evaluate how any sources of fault might impact on the interpretation of your results in relation to the aims, research question(south) or hypothesis.
State the limitations of the study and link to literature

Clarify how the limitations of the written report might touch the accuracy and precision of the answers to your aim, research question or hypothesis.

Suggest how the experiment or assay could have been improved. A longer written report may require support from the academic literature.

Explain how your results practise or do not accost your aim, research question or hypothesis, and indicate future directions for the enquiry.

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The give-and-take case below is from a starting time-year Biology unit. The aim of this experiment was to place decomposition rates of leaf breakdown to found rates of free energy transfer.

Drag each description of each component of the Word section to its instance. Notice the gild in which the components make upwards a coherent Discussion section.

Determination

Students ofttimes make the mistake of thinking a conclusion section is identical to a word section.

The decision section is where you summarise your report. A conclusion is normally one paragraph or 200 to 300 words. In this way a determination is very similar to an abstract, but with more emphasis on the results and discussion.

A decision never introduces any new ideas or results. Rather, it provides a concise summary of those which have already been presented in the report. When writing a conclusion y'all should:

briefly restate the purpose of the experiment (i.e. the question it was seeking to respond)
identify the principal findings (i.e. the answer to the research question)
note the main limitations that are relevant to the estimation of the results
summarise what the experiment has contributed to the broader understanding of the problem.

Determination example with feedback

Student's text	Lecturers comment
The concentration of salicylic acid in commercially available aspirin tablets was determined through UV spectroscopy.	Brainstorm by describing the aims of the experiment and the method used to reach them.
The hateful concentration from iii different tablets was adamant to be 301.1+/-iv.36 mg per tablet, which is within commercially permitted limits.	Specific description of final results. Note the use of specific numbers and units.
The results for private tablets were found to be dependent on how finely the tablets were crushed before they were dissolved. Standardised approach to breaking down the tablets might further better the accurateness of the results.	Summarises the principal reasons for any discrepancies and recommends improvements to overcome experimental limitations.
These findings show that analytical chemistry techniques such as spectrometry can be used for fast, accurate determination of compound composition. This is important in many industries, where consistency is crucial for effective use of the product, or is vital to the condom of the product.	Briefly summarise key results with respect to the broader context.

References

When in-text citations are incorporated into your lab report (typically in the introduction or give-and-take) you must ever have the full references included in a separate reference list. The reference list is a separate section that comes after your determination (and earlier any appendices).

Check your lab manual or unit information to determine which referencing mode is preferred. Carefully follow that referencing style for your in-text references and reference list. You tin can notice examples and data about common referencing styles in the Citing and referencing Library guide.

The post-obit is an example of a reference list based on the in-text citations used in the Introduction and Conclusion sections in this tutorial. This example has been formatted in accord with the CSIRO referencing manner.

References

Jones T, Smith Grand, Nguyen P, di Alberto P (2017) Effects of habitat overlap on population sampling. Ecology Environmental Journal 75, 23-29. doi: x.5432/1111.23

Tian M, Castillo TL (2016) Solar heating uptake in Commonwealth of australia: rates, causes and effects. Energy Efficiency Reports. Report no. x, The Section of Sustainability and Environment, Canberra.

Appendices

An appendix (plural = appendices) contains material that is also detailed to include in the chief report, such every bit tables of raw data or detailed calculations.

Each appendix must exist:

given a number (or letter) and title
referred to by number (or letter) at the relevant point in the text.

Case

The calculated values are shown in Tabular array 3 below. For detailed calculations, encounter Appendix ane.