Written Lab Report Guidelines

BB 560 Written Lab Report Guidelines

Specific conventions for scientific technical writing exist, which are a set of standard guidelines for style, form, content, and tenses used. The process utilized in scientific technical writing is similar to other (and perhaps more familiar) forms of writing. Information must be gathered from a variety of sources (i.e., journal articles, collected data, etc.) and distilled. Novel analyses, conclusions, and interpretations are presented. Specific content instructions will be provided for each section based on the outcomes of the experiments performed by the instructor.

Please note: All sections MUST be written in complete sentences/paragraphs!

Abstract (1/2 page max!)

Abstracts are one paragraph in length, and are written in the past tense. In essence, abstracts summarize your entire lab report as succinctly as possible. First, state the research question you are trying to answer (can be in the form of a hypothesis statement). Next, state which experiments and methods of analysis you are performing and (just as importantly!) why you are performing them (i.e., how the results you obtain will address the research question, or confirm/disprove the hypothesis). State the results obtained and the conclusions you can draw from the data. You may wish provide a statement on future directions building off the research, depending on length requirements.

Introduction
Please see Lab Report 1 document for specifics.

Materials and Methods

For this course, in particular because you will not be on-site doing the purifications yourselves, this section will be relatively minimalist in nature. I will let you know what to include, which will be provided as a bulleted list of key information when I have run the experiments.

Results and Discussion

In this section you will present all tables/figures/graphs with a descriptive legend (see examples provided). You will also provide a text description of key data with analysis and conclusions that can be drawn from your results. Tables and graphs should be integrated into the text, not appended at the end of the report! Be sure to place your findings in the context of class results, and also answer questions as indicated in specific report guidelines.

Conclusions and Future Directions

A restatement of objectives with overall conclusions on whether or not they were met should be provided. Finally, end your report with a paragraph on future directions (“the next step”) of this research, and informed by your results and experience in and beyond this class.

References

Required for all reports; must include the lab manual and any other outside sources in proper citation format (see examples provided).