Instructions on Writing a Biology Laboratory Report
Dr. R. Kennedy
Laboratory work is an essential part of Biology. Scientists are foremost communicators of the results of the experiments they design and carry out. In order to practice this form of communication, to improve critical thinking skills and writing skills, a laboratory report will be required for almost all laboratory work. This format will not only help you organize your work for this class, but will become invaluable in your college careers.
What follows is a short description of the sections that should be included in your laboratory reports. This format is as we discussed in class used in most scientific journals. The length of each section will vary depending on how many results you have and there is no set length for a report.
Title:
The title should be descriptive in order to tell the reader what the Lab report is about. You should list the names of everyone in your group who worked with you on the experiment right under the title. Put your name first. Put when and where the work was done under your names.
For Example:
Investigating the Effects of Enzyme Concentration on the Rate of an Enzyme Reaction
My Name Is First, Second Person in my group, Third Person in my group, Fourth Person in my group
Tenafly High School, Biology
September 15, 2007
Introduction:
The introduction will sum up the background of the experiment. The introduction is where you write the hypothesis, and the purpose for doing the experiment. You should refer to any background reading you did in the textbook in the introduction. If you cite any reading form the textbook you need to include a Literature Cited section at the end of the report and give the correct bibliographic information.
For example: “Writing a Science paper is easy compared to English or History papers because science writers do not use foot notes. Instead we generally follow two style guides, one for biology (1) and one for chemistry (2).
Now look at the Literature Cited section.
Materials and methods:
In this section you write either a list, or in paragraph form, all the equipment, samples, chemicals, or solutions you used in the experiment.
Next you write the protocols you followed to do the experiment. You can summarize the lab handouts or the textbook directions. Do not copy word for word any of the procedures from a handout or the textbook.
Results:
Here you put in any tables, graphs, and charts that you constructed from the data you collected in the lab when you were doing the experiment. All graphs you construct must have the axes labeled. Any graphs, tables or charts you construct must have figure legends to go with them. A figure legend is a short paragraph that goes right under the graph, table or chart that explains to the reader how to read the graph, table or chart. The figure legend should be set up so that a reader can tell what the results are without having to read the discussion section. You do not copy your raw data in the results section.
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Discussion:
The discussion is where you explain your results. Here is where you tell the reader if the results support your hypothesis or not; whether you achieved the purpose of the experiment or not. In this section also you can make predictions about the purpose and suggest to the reader other experiments that may be done by someone else. In this section also, you would answer any questions that were posed to you in the handouts or the textbook about the experiment. You should answer these questions in a paragraph form, weaving your answers into the discussion of the results.
Literature Cited:
If you refer to your textbook, or to any articles in the paper or in magazines, in your lab report you cite them in the text numerically. Then in this section you number the citations and give the bibliographic information a reader would need to look up the article.
For example from the end of the Introduction section we have two citations number (1) and number (2). They would be listed in the Literature Cited section like this:
- Council of Biology Editors Style Manual; CBE Style Committee, Eds.; American Institute of Biological Sciences: Arlington, VA, 1978.
- Dodd, Janet, S., Ed. The ACS Style Guide; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1997.