Instruction for writing practical report

by Dr PC Loh Revised Jan 15, 2014

Please read the Report Guideline carefully before writing your practical report. For submission of a practical report each time, please enclose with a Cover Page. Key in the experiment title and the submission date accordingly.

Please put a mark at the appropriate box d e.g. If you are a student who attends the Wednesday 12-2 pm practical slot, please tick as shown in the following: Practical Group: P1 (Tue 9-11am) P2 (Wed 12-2 pm)
d

Date of submission for practical report is exactly 2 weeks after the practical has been conducted. Please plan and manage your time properly, DO NOT rush into completing your report at the LAST minute. Report Guidelines: Use scientific English, keep it simple and short. Justify or align your text to both the left and right margins of paragraph. This generates a clean look a look along the left and right side of the page.

Title: Expt.1 Epidemiology Objectives: 1. To investigate the effectiveness of different disinfectants in hand washing 2. To compare fomite and direct transmission of microbes 3. To test for the presence of microbes in makeup or personal care products Introduction: Introductory chapter (background information) that indicates the problem to be addressed and its importance and validity. It sets forth the context, the hypotheses to be tested and the research objectives to be achieved. Content for Introduction can be modified from the lab manual. Materials and Methods: Descriptions of materials, equipment, procedures, techniques, and calculations employed through out the study. Methods used can be modified from the lab manual, Most of this section should be written in the past tense. The main purpose is to describe the experimental design and then provide enough detail (e.g. incubated at 30OC, 18 hours; centrifugation at
1

14,000 rpm, 5 min., etc) so that a competent worker can repeat the experiments and get similar or reproducible results. Example of common mistakes make by student: 1. Single SPACE must be added in between numeral number and measurement unit: e.g. 100000rpm, 15min. (wrong) 100,000 rpm, 15 min. (correct) 100g/ml (wrong) 100 g/ml (correct) 5kg (wrong) 5 kg (correct) 2. Do NOT start a sentence with numeral number. e.g. 10 mL solution was transferred (wrong) Ten milliliter of solution was transferred(correct) A volume of 10 mL solution was transferred(correct)

Results: The results are actual statements of observations, whether positive or negative. It can be reported in the form of figures (photo or graph etc.) together with explanatory caption/text (legend), tables, statistics or text description. There are usually two parts of the Results section. First, you should give some kind of overall description of the experiment, giving the big picture, without repeating the experiment details previously provided in Materials and Methods. Second, you should present your data, your data should be presented in the past tense (Day and Gastel, 2006). Discussion: A discussion is based on the results obtained from the study in relation to the hypotheses and is not simply a restatement of the results. It highlights the main finding, their significance and implications. The discussion section should be a brief essay in itself, answering the following questions: What are the major patterns in the observations? What are the relationships, trends and generalizations among the results? Is there agreement or contrast with previous work done by other scientists? Add appropriate in-text citation to support your findings. How do the obtained results relate to your objectives/hypothesis/problem statement in the introduction? Precaution step(s) if any, to improve the quality of data obtained

Conclusion: State your conclusion as clearly as possible. Depends on the experiment, normally it comprises two to three sentences that summarized up your findings

References: Use Harvard style for in-text citation and Reference list.
2

1. Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, 2011. [Online]. Project Report Guide [pdf] Available at http://www.utar.edu.my/fs/file/FYP Report Guide v4_June2011 [Accessed 22 May 2013].

2. Day, R. A. and Gastel, B., 2006. How to write and publish a scientific paper. 6th ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Questions: Answer accordingly.