question archive Lab Report Requirements When you complete your lab reports, please include the following sections: I
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Lab Report Requirements
When you complete your lab reports, please include the following sections:
I. Goal: A one paragraph description of what you were trying to accomplish in the lab and how you tried to do it.
II. Procedure: A description of the experiment. This should be a summary of what you did during the experiment and why. It should be detailed enough that somebody could read this and re-create the experiment themselves. However, it shouldn’t be step-by-step instructions so you don’t have to list every little thing you did. It should only be two or three paragraphs long.
III. Data: This should include all the data you collected in the lab. Make sure to present the data in clear, readable tables. Include graphs and screenshots where appropriate but make sure they’re clearly labeled and that you explain what your data shows. This will probably be the longest section of your lab report.
IV. Calculations: This is pretty straightforward. Include all calculations you did for the lab, including your standard deviations and percent error, as appropriate. Make sure to round to the appropriate number of significant digits. Also, make sure to include any and all units and to show your work. You will not receive full credit if you don’t include units and don’t show your work.
V. Questions: Some labs may have additional questions to answer. Answer those here.
VI. Conclusions: Summarize the results of your lab. You should write a paragraph or so describing your results and whether or not they met the goals of the experiment. Calculate your percent error as follows:
and include that in your lab report. Discuss any factors that could have caused your results to be inaccurate and, if the percent error is large, explain what went wrong.
The lab should be typed, double-spaced, and in a neat, reasonably-sized font (if you’re not sure, 10 or 12 pt. Times New Roman and Arial are good choices). This also applies to your equations: modern word processors have ways to typeset equations. Make sure your report is formatted neatly and that you include the headers mentioned above – including the Roman numerals – for each section of the lab. If you’re not sure about the formatting or need help setting it up, don’t hesitate to ask.