professional lab report writing service

professional lab report writing service

Enhancing Scientific Communication: A Comprehensive Guide to Writing Professional Lab Reports

1. Introduction to Lab Reports

Lab reports serve as an important method of communicating research findings. A lab report presents questions that the experiment addresses, methods of collecting and analyzing data, and results and interpretations that are drawn from the data. This general structure can be applied to conversation about a specific experiment, such as a reproducibility project, or to a related collection of studies about a topic. Knowledge of writing lab reports is useful because they have many of the structural components of professional scientific papers that communicate the results of original research.

An important aspect of learning to write lab reports is that they lead into writing research papers, or primary scientific papers. “The basics” lab report exercises introduce formatting and structure that are parallel in lab reports and scientific papers. Naming and setting up the sections of a lab report to correspond to the IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) subheadings improves students’ writing skills. Because many professional scientific reports follow the IMRaD structure and formatting, structure, and content of this type of report can improve understanding in the present and prepare students for future courses and research. In a lab report exercise, we use a full professional paper as the source of primary data. After the exercise, students in the corresponding lecture class read a related paper. These two papers inspire discussion about the importance of shared meaning in individual sections of a scientific paper and about variations in section structure.

2. Key Elements of a Professional Lab Report

The professional lab report should include a title, abstract, introduction, methods section, results section, and discussion, followed by references.

As in a scientific manuscript, the title should be a simple, informative declaration of what the study is about. Write it for your audience, keeping in mind why they might be interested in your research and what they can hope to learn from reading it. The title can also be used for indexing, so it should include relevant keywords for easy location in electronic databases. Avoid abbreviations and jargon unless the terminology is common knowledge or is widely accepted in your field.

The abstract is a concise summary of your report that encompasses all sections of the report except for the References. The abstract, which may be up to 150 words long, should briefly state: the experimental question or purpose; the method used to address the question; the major finding(s); and the interpretation of the result(s) and conclusions drawn. Each of these topics should be addressed in a separate sentence. In your abstract, it may be helpful to include measurements and/or descriptive statistics that support your interpretation of the major finding(s) that back up the interpretation. A good way to start writing the Abstract is to restate the study question and/or purpose, make a broad, general remark or two about your results or procedure as you have interpreted it to date, and give the results (as numbers, if possible). Do not cite references in the abstract.

A well-structured introductory section is crucial for hooking the reader and maintaining their interest. All good introductions start with a general, broad statement about the topic of the study, possibly a historical perspective or a widely accepted hypothesis or theory. The introduction then narrows down to the particular experiment in question, and at the end contains a statement of the problem or questions that the research was designed to answer. The final sentence should contain a statement of which alternative was supported by the results. It is helpful to briefly discuss how this study is related to previous work in the field and how it extends or tests the important concepts that the previous work addressed. Be sure to reference pertinent literature, including some citations from primary literature retrieved from professional journals; avoid using only textbooks. Only necessary prior information should be included in the introduction in order to keep the section short and focused. Always keep your audience in mind while writing.

The methods section should be a complete but concise explanation of the procedure(s) used in the experiment. Everything done should be covered, except for data obtained and how the data were analyzed, which are left for the results section. Include in the methods section, in the order they appeared, the subjects (species, strain, etc. of the experimental organism if of broadcast interest), observational procedures (only if your procedure involved detecting or recording behavior), the stimulus, and the experimental procedures and/or apparatus used. Always write in the past tense as the entire methods should describe what you actually did, step by step. If your procedure describes a precise, self-contained study, you may use the imperative. While the details of other components of the lab report vary depending on the nature of the study, six sections are common to all lab reports. Each of these sections is discussed in detail below.

3. Structural Components and Formatting Guidelines

I. Introduction The structure of a lab report is important, but so are the little things. Your report should be written in the third person and past tense (e.g., “The data were analyzed…” instead of “We analyzed the data…”). Additionally, insert the page number and the title or a shortened version of the title in the header (right-aligned). Your last name should be in the header just outside of the vertical section of text, left-aligned. A title page should be included, formatted as shown in Fig. 3.1.

A. Abstract B. Section Headings To reduce eye strain and help the reader navigate, please consider using the following headings which are formatted as center column headings: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. Subheadings can help break up sections of text and can include, but are not limited to: Introduction, Purpose, Hypotheses, Discussion, Conclusion, References, Figures, Tables, Appendices.

III. Methods A. Design B. Participants C. Materials D. Procedure E. Data Analyses Top, bottom, and side margins should be set at 1 inch. Pages should be double-spaced. A structure like this helps the reader know that they’re on the right section, and it helps you as the writer think about the logical flow of the paper. It can also be very helpful when you’re revising your paper. What if you were asked to organize the paper using only the headings? What order would you do it in, and why? Use this template to help you as you put your paper together.

4. Data Analysis and Interpretation Techniques

By this point in the report, you have already included all the information one needs to know in order to duplicate your experiment. The question now is, so what? What did your experiment show us? How can your data be made applicable to other scientific pursuits? Can you make any solid conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of your test, or any of your techniques or equipment? We call these questions “data analysis and interpretation.” Usually they are referred to simply as the last few lines of “Results” and generally known as “Conclusions” lines. You might see this section have its own heading, but don’t do this. Just include a few “Conclusions” lines, and focus on the content. The body of the section will elaborate on both the data analysis and the interpretation of the results section.

Data analysis is the process of discovering the pattern in the data. Again, I must emphasize how important it is for you to have any averages running at this point; if you have “N/A” in your raw data table, just leave it out of the calculation. If you have three replicate values for your measurements, take the averages of those. Be sure to label your axes on any graphs/pies/bar charts you make. Interpretation is to draw out the meaning or significance of the pattern or relationship discovered in the data. Finally, a series of sentences written in the active voice concisely inform others what they ought to remember. Don’t give the impression that you don’t stand by your assertions; if you have a reasonable doubt, write things like “it appears likely that” or “it seems that” or “we suggest that your evil scientist should verify.” If the results of your statistical analysis have any bearing on the results, be sure to interpret them thoroughly.

5. Conclusions and Recommendations

The recommendation zone of the lab report is the opportunity to draw practical insights from your findings. This part of your report is your own creation, unlike the results section, which must mirror your actual findings in content and organization.

1. Conclusions. The conclusions section explores the implications of your results. Your conclusions section should serve as a slightly more detailed but just as clear elaboration on your interpretations. A typical conclusions section might be two to three paragraphs long. It is fine to include a section heading for conclusions, or to simply begin the first paragraph of the section with a statement of the conclusion. The conclusion should not describe the research approach or attempt to describe the implications in a cryptic way.

State your results as briefly and directly as possible. Also clarify what the implications are of these findings. The importance of the red line between some obscure variants of concentrate or solution could be confirmed when a dilution with DGC (inner standard) was used. At concentrations of the final standard solution lower than 500 ol dm-3 problems with the accuracy of the adequate positioning of the drops onto a DQCl probe head can appear and give the oscillatory signal, which does not grow up monotonically. Your writing assignment is to make these key outcomes of your study crystal-clear so that your research is valuable to your fellow classmates in the lab. It is assumed that they will read your introduction so that you do not have to redo the introduction in the conclusion.

The recommendations section is where you explain the steps to be taken on the basis of the findings of your conclusions. For instance, if your conclusions state that additional studies are needed to come to a final conclusion about a topic, your recommendation section should state the type and size of studies that are needed. Do you want more resources? Maybe the funding authority has to put more money into some area because good outcomes were seen. Maybe you found an alternative measurement technique that explores literature. Maybe your findings could work to develop some new area, and the funding authority should consider funding more research papers in that area. In the final draft of your report, the recommendations will appear at the end of the conclusions section.