Introduction to Lab report Writing

Dr. Will Kurlinkus

Genre Specifications

All sections are present in the proper order.

Information is logically ordered.

There is no overlap between sections.

1. Abstract: One sentence on everything
2. Introduction: Hypothesis and why you have that hypothesis based on
previous research. What is this study about?
3. Procedures: How did you test your hypothesis and why did you perform
your study in that particular way.
4. Results: Raw (un-interpreted data) in different forms (charts, graphs, etc.)
5. Discussions: What does your data mean? Does it support your hypothesis?
What are the implications?
6. Conclusions
7. References
 Abstract

Around 200 Words

Write this last, after you know your results.

Should provide the reader with a brief summary of

everything: the problem/goals being addressed, hypothesis
what you did (methodology), your results, and what they
mean.
 Common Abstract Errors
Too long or too short: Should be one paragraph

Not specific enough: Should include something from each section

Vagueness:
Steels are one of the most widely used materials in the world and controlling the
physical properties they possess has been an engineering challenge for years.
This introduction line is a little broad and student like. Id start with the second
line. Remember all the information you provide should be useful to your
audience and specific to the experiment.
Each sample was viewed under high magnifications and these predictions were
further investigated.
Some vague language here. What does further investigated mean? What
specifically was investigated?
Samples that had been water quenched had vast amounts of
Vast is a little vague. Vast as compared to what? Use estimated percentages
instead.
This experiment was performed to gain experience in metallography through
comparing steels...
This is student languagethe experiment was performed to demonstrate the
effects of varying cooling rates on heat treated stealput things in terms of
what youre teaching your audience, not in terms of what you learned
To provide ideas on how to improve the ease of use of the
Norman Public Schools website, our team designed two
scenarios and invited two participants to perform a usability
test. The test results showed that the navigation to the
nutrition facts of each item on the school menu cant be
found, while the online account refill and the school menu
are easy to be found if the user likes using the left navigation
bar. The following report will describe in detail about what
we found based on our usability test and what our team
proposed for the usability improvement of your website.

Our Abstract
What did the scenarios test? What goals did it focus on? Who were
the two participants? What is the methodology?
Introduction

Under 2 Pages (1-paragraph for us)

Creates a context for your entire report.

Introduces the theory, definitions, diagrams, and
techniques that will be needed to understand the
discussion section.
What is your hypothesis? Why?
Describes the goals of the experiment and why you are
doing it.
Must balance what the reader does and does not need
to know.
Describes what you might expect to see.
 Common Introduction Errors
Either giving too much or too little information.
Dont go into description of your specific procedures, yet.
Dont give your reader information that wont be useful in
understanding the experiment. But give them all the
information that they will need.
What is common knowledge and what isnt?
Dont give vague statements like Metallography is really
important to welding engineering. Without it engineering
would not be what it is today. If you want to tell us what
metallography is and why its important to what your
experiment is about, thats ok. But start specific and stay
specific.
Every piece of information you provide needs to relate to what
youre doing in the experiment.
Explains the general processes you used and your hypotheses:
What is usability testing?
Why are you doing it?
Who is the key audience/user persona you are testing and why?
Who are your subjects?
What are the predictions/hypothesis you made in 4.1 on poor designs?

Basically a brief summary of 4.1. Might be good to have phrases like, As

discussed in our memo on Nov. 10, we planned to Remind the client of
what youve already done together. Walk a careful balance of explaining
your theories without treating your client like they are an idiot.

Our Introduction
Procedures

Think instruction set

Deadly specific descriptions of what you did.

Past tense.

Describes your materials, what you did with them, and

what techniques you used.

Remember you are trying to create a repeatable

experiment so someone can recreate your results.
 Common Procedures Errors
This is not a cooking recipeyou should not be giving
orders: First, mount the Bakelite. becomes First,
samples were mounted in Bakelite.
It should be in past tense and describe what you did. Try to avoid personal pronouns
(you, I, we) as well.
Three metal samples of each 1018, 1045, and 4340 steel weregiven to each lab
group. Prior to the lab each sample was stamped with an eight or a five followed by
either the letter
Try to avoid this type of student language. These first two sentences arent really
necessary for an understanding of the experiment.
The first heat treatment is to heat the steel to 950 C and keep it at that heat for
fifteen minutes; this step will be repeated in the following two heat treatments as
well. After the initial heating, the sample is simply allowed to air cool.
Repetitionalso please keep in the past tense throughout the procedure

section.

Dont skip steps: For instance, dont just say that the metal was polished. Tell me the
different grits of sand paper, the order of grits, and how you cleansed samples
between grits. Be specific.

Procedures dont blur into interpretation of data. They just describe what you did. A
good procedure can be written before the lab but should also include anything that
went different than predicted.
Explains the specific procedures from 4.2, why you designed them the
way you did, and how they played out in actuality (not an analysis but
what actually happened in the usability test)you are going for
replicability of experiment in case your client wants you to repeat the
test with a larger sample size. Gives details of how you ran the
experiment in the past tense. What was your protocol? Your scenarios?
How long did each experiment last? Etc. Please do not describe results
in this sectionfocus on your scenarios (give them fully) and design of
the test.
Intro script
Homepage tour
Both Scenarios
Your IDEO design Method

Our Procedure
 Results

Major results including all your figures, tables, charts, etc.

All your data should be explained to your reader, generally

before the figure is shownwhat are we seeing, what do the
different colors represent?

Data should be given in some logical orderchoose one and

stick to it.

Data should be given but not analyzed.

Microstructures should be labeled within images.

 Common Results Errors
Dont just give me a bunch of figures and graphs. You need to describe what I am seeing
both in captions and in the text outside those captions and labels.
Describe what different colors represent.
Talk about how different figures and charts differ from one another.
Talk about general trends.

But dont begin to explain why figures and trends are occurring.

Dont leave the reader wondering what a microstructure islabel them all.

Dont give one line descriptions above a figure that are the exact same as the caption
below the figure. Introduce figures a group at a time (and group them logically).
Figures 1-5 show the effects of air cooling on 4340 at magnifications of 400x and 800x.
Pearlite appears as dark brown patches while ferrite (the majority of each sample)
appears light grey

In general, the most formatting errors happen in this section. Make all figures uniform, dont
have images extending beyond the edges of the page.
Chooses several key
block quotes from
each test and gives
an image from the
website that
illustrates what each
quote is specifically
talking about.
Organized in some
specific manner:
What did each
subject state about
a specific part of the
site?

Describes 3 major
(big problems that
need fixing now)
and 3 minor
problems.
 Discussions

This is where most of the writing happens:

Use the theory in your introduction to explain the tables, figures,
and quotes of your results.
What is the significance of your results?
What do they mean?
What trends are you seeing and why are you seeing them?
Do your results match up with your predictions? Why or why
not?
Refer directly to your figures and tables by name.
How reliable is your data? Why? Did any mistakes occur?
 Common Discussions Mistakes

Dont introduce new definitions, techniques, procedures

these should all be introduced in the introduction.
You can and should, of course, use all those things to describe
what youre seeing.

Make sure you refer directly to your Figures and Tables.

Figure 1 illustratesthis has happened because

Refer to the Common Errors sheet on Carmen to get into

some of the grammar errors that I see most often.
What do your results mean? What were the most common errors
you saw? How do these errors differ from or corroborate the
predictions in your introduction? Which problem will you tackle
first? How will your solutions benefit the companydirectly impact
user-experience and profitability? What are some possible solutions
following Krugs tweaks methods from Chapter 11to your
problems?

For each of your three major problems I want you to provide:

1. A quick fix (tweak) that could be implemented immediately.
Remember Krugs advice on reductive vs. additive changes
(always think about reducing content and pages rather than
adding).
2. A long-term fix that will take some time to produce but will
make the website perfect. Provide an example solutionfrom a
competitors sitefor each problem.

Our Discussions
Conclusions

Around Two Paragraphs

Shouldnt simply be a repetition of your introduction.

Briefly describe the specifics of what youve discoveredmore

focused on your results than the abstract.

Discusses the implications of your results to the larger field of

engineering or to your client.
Why do your results matter practically? How can your results help
predict other results?
Do they apply to all steels? Or only to the specific type youre talking
about?
What applications do they have specifically in the field of welding?
Summarize your suggestions for the company moving on. What are
the things to fix first? What next? Should the company do more
usability testing? Why? (Hint. Yes. You want more moneyalways
recommend opportunities for making things better.) On what
issues? Refer back to the idea of profitabilityhow has this test
directly benefited the company? Why was it worth it for them to
pay money to do this?

Our Conclusions