Guidelines for Laboratory Reports and Scoring Rubric for Grading

Each individual is responsible for writing their own report. Even though you worked as a group, and there are bound to be some similarities in the reports of group members, it is important that each of you write the report in your own words. Identical reports from group members will not be accepted. All reports are to be physically handed in on the date indicated and electronically submitted to turnitin.com.

The report will have the following components:

  1. Title- Descriptive title, your name and date
  1. Introduction-This is where you give the reader pertinent background information about the goals of the study and the purpose of the experiments. You may include other information that you feel is necessary to enhance your lab report but the information needs to have a purpose within the context of what you are studying. Any references used to discuss the topic must be cited properly using APA format. You must include your hypothesis as well if your experiment required one. It is essential that you provide the necessary scientific information that links your hypothesis to the purpose of the study. It should therefore include your initial hypothesis and reason for hypothesis, and prediction based on the hypothesis if a hypothesis was generated.
  1. Materials and Methods- Detail standard operating procedures. Do not use lists and do not write out every nitty-gritty detail as though you were playing a virtual reality game. Simply outline the procedure so that anyone could go into the lab and set up your experiment. Make sure you have included a description of each of the variables pertinent to the lab experiment.
  1. Results/Data Collection-This is the centerpiece of the report. What were the major findings of the study? You are not explaining why you got the results at this point or interpreting the data, save that for the discussion. Simply point out major trends to the reader. Use graphs and tables to summarize observations and data collected. Data collected should be presented in table and graph (figure) format,ALONG WITH A DESCRIPTION of your observations. It is not sufficient to have the tables or figures stand alone. There must be a text that explains what the tables and figures show. All figures and tables included in the report must be referred to somewhere in the text.

Figures and tables should be given a title, followed by a legend, which describes exactly what the figure/table shows. Figures and tables must be numbered consecutively, and must be referred to in the text of the results section. Figure descriptions go below the figure, table descriptions go above the table.

***Include a short paragraph pointing out important results, but save your conclusions for the discussion.****

  1. Discussion- It is in the discussion section that you discuss how the results of the study are related to the purpose of the studyas stated in your Introduction. You should refer to the results that might have been expected based on the background information obtained from outside sources (i.e. lectures, textbooks, research). If your experiment is based on a hypothesis state whether your hypothesis was supported or proven false by the results. You should:

State your conclusions and the specific results that support you conclusion.

Demonstrate the biological/chemical meaning of your results.

Compare the results with your predictions and explain any unexpected results.

Compare the results with other research or information available to you.

Discuss any weakness in your experimental design or problems with the execution of the experiment.

Discuss how you might extend or improve your experiment. What would you do next?

If applicable, what new hypotheses might be formulated and how might these be tested?

  1. References- This section contains the references that were cited in the paper. References should be listed in alphabetical order. All references should be cited in APA format. Visit the library website to review APA formatting.

Within or at the end of a sentence you would reference like this:

Chlamydomonas is a biflagellated, unicellular green algae (Author, Year).

-OR-

According to Author (Year), Chlamydomonas can reproduce vegetatively or sexually.

Make sure you are referencing your information. If you do not I will assume you are plagiarizing information and you will receive a zero for the report.

***REMEMBER *** you must submit your report to turnitin.com before the due date.

You will be graded using the enclosed laboratory report scoring rubric. Look at it. Read it. FOLLOW IT.

The following supplemental texts are recommended not required. If you are a biology or chemistry major and will be taking upper level coursework these may prove useful and provide extra guidance when writing scientifically.

Short Guide to Writing about Biology by Jan Pechenik. Any recent edition will do.

Short Guide to Writing about Chemistry by Herbert Beall and John Trimbur. Any recent edition will do.

Updated 8/5/2014