If Given the Chance to Perform This Lab Again What Would You Do Differently

What this handout is about

This handout provides a general guide to writing reports about scientific research you've performed. In addition to describing the conventional rules about the format and content of a lab study, nosotros'll too effort to convey why these rules be, so yous'll get a clearer, more dependable thought of how to approach this writing situation. Readers of this handout may likewise find our handout on writing in the sciences useful.

Background and pre-writing

Why do we write enquiry reports?

You did an experiment or study for your science class, and now you have to write it up for your instructor to review. You lot feel that you understood the background sufficiently, designed and completed the written report effectively, obtained useful data, and tin can apply those data to depict conclusions near a scientific process or principle. But how exactly do you write all that? What is your teacher expecting to see?

To take some of the guesswork out of answering these questions, try to think beyond the classroom setting. In fact, you and your teacher are both office of a scientific community, and the people who participate in this community tend to share the same values. Equally long every bit you understand and respect these values, your writing will likely meet the expectations of your audience—including your instructor.

So why are you writing this research report? The practical answer is "Considering the teacher assigned it," but that'due south classroom thinking. Mostly speaking, people investigating some scientific hypothesis have a responsibility to the residual of the scientific world to report their findings, particularly if these findings add to or contradict previous ideas. The people reading such reports take two main goals:

1. They desire to get together the data presented.
2. They want to know that the findings are legitimate.

Your job equally a author, so, is to fulfill these ii goals.

How do I practise that?

Good question. Here is the basic format scientists have designed for enquiry reports:

• Introduction
• Methods and Materials
• Results
• Discussion

This format, sometimes called "IMRAD," may take slightly different shapes depending on the discipline or audience; some ask you to include an abstract or divide section for the hypothesis, or phone call the Give-and-take section "Conclusions," or change the order of the sections (some professional person and academic journals require the Methods department to announced last). Overall, nevertheless, the IMRAD format was devised to represent a textual version of the scientific method.

The scientific method, you'll probably remember, involves developing a hypothesis, testing it, and deciding whether your findings support the hypothesis. In essence, the format for a research report in the sciences mirrors the scientific method but fleshes out the process a little. Below, you'll find a tabular array that shows how each written section fits into the scientific method and what additional data it offers the reader.

Section	Scientific method step	Besides as…
Introduction	states your hypothesis	explains how yous derived that hypothesis and how it connects to previous inquiry; gives the purpose of the experiment/study
Methods	details how you lot tested your hypothesis	clarifies why you performed your written report in that particular way
Results	provides raw (i.e., uninterpreted) data collected	(perhaps) expresses the data in table form, as an easy-to-read figure, or as percentages/ratios
Discussion	considers whether the information you obtained support the hypothesis	explores the implications of your finding and judges the potential limitations of your experimental design

Thinking of your research report as based on the scientific method, but elaborated in the means described above, may help you to meet your audience's expectations successfully. Nosotros're going to proceed past explicitly connecting each department of the lab report to the scientific method, then explaining why and how yous demand to elaborate that section.

Although this handout takes each department in the order in which information technology should exist presented in the final report, you may for applied reasons decide to etch sections in some other order. For case, many writers find that composing their Methods and Results before the other sections helps to analyze their idea of the experiment or report as a whole. You lot might consider using each consignment to practice different approaches to drafting the report, to find the social club that works all-time for you.

What should I exercise earlier drafting the lab report?

The best way to prepare to write the lab written report is to brand certain that you fully understand everything you need to about the experiment. Obviously, if y'all don't quite know what went on during the lab, you're going to observe it difficult to explain the lab satisfactorily to someone else. To make certain you know enough to write the report, complete the post-obit steps:

• What are we hoping to larn from this experiment? Read your lab manual thoroughly, well before you start to carry out the experiment. Enquire yourself the post-obit questions:
  • What are we going to practise in this lab? (That is, what's the procedure?)
  • Why are we going to do information technology that style?
  • What are we hoping to learn from this experiment?
  • Why would nosotros benefit from this cognition?

  Answering these questions will lead y'all to a more complete understanding of the experiment, and this "large moving picture" will in turn aid you lot write a successful lab written report.

• Consult your lab supervisor as you perform the lab. If y'all don't know how to answer one of the questions to a higher place, for example, your lab supervisor will probably be able to explain it to you lot (or, at least, help yous figure information technology out).
• Programme the steps of the experiment carefully with your lab partners. The less yous rush, the more likely it is that you'll perform the experiment correctly and record your findings accurately. As well, take some time to remember about the best mode to organize the data before y'all have to start putting numbers down. If yous can design a table to account for the data, that will tend to work much meliorate than jotting results downwards hurriedly on a bit piece of newspaper.
• Record the data advisedly so you get them right. You won't be able to trust your conclusions if y'all have the incorrect data, and your readers will know you messed up if the other three people in your grouping have "97 degrees" and you lot have "87."
• Consult with your lab partners near everything you do. Lab groups often brand i of 2 mistakes: two people practise all the work while 2 have a overnice conversation, or everybody works together until the group finishes gathering the raw data, and so scrams outta there. Collaborate with your partners, even when the experiment is "over." What trends did you discover? Was the hypothesis supported? Did y'all all become the same results? What kind of figure should you use to stand for your findings? The whole group can work together to answer these questions.
• Consider your audience. You may believe that audition is a non-issue: it'southward your lab TA, right? Well, yeah—but over again, call back beyond the classroom. If you write with merely your lab instructor in listen, you may omit material that is crucial to a consummate agreement of your experiment, because you assume the teacher knows all that stuff already. Equally a result, you may receive a lower course, since your TA won't be certain that you understand all the principles at work. Try to write towards a educatee in the same class but a different lab section. That student will have a fair degree of scientific expertise just won't know much nigh your experiment particularly. Alternatively, you lot could envision yourself five years from now, after the reading and lectures for this course take faded a bit. What would you remember, and what would you demand explained more than clearly (as a refresher)?

Once you've completed these steps as you perform the experiment, you'll exist in a good position to draft an constructive lab study.

Introductions

How do I write a strong introduction?

For the purposes of this handout, we'll consider the Introduction to comprise four basic elements: the purpose, the scientific literature relevant to the bailiwick, the hypothesis, and the reasons you believed your hypothesis viable. Allow's start by going through each element of the Introduction to analyze what it covers and why it's important. Then we tin can formulate a logical organizational strategy for the section.

Purpose

The inclusion of the purpose (sometimes called the objective) of the experiment oftentimes confuses writers. The biggest misconception is that the purpose is the same equally the hypothesis. Non quite. We'll go to hypotheses in a infinitesimal, but basically they provide some indication of what you wait the experiment to show. The purpose is broader, and deals more with what y'all expect to gain through the experiment. In a professional person setting, the hypothesis might take something to do with how cells react to a certain kind of genetic manipulation, but the purpose of the experiment is to learn more than about potential cancer treatments. Undergraduate reports don't often take this wide-ranging a goal, but you should all the same try to maintain the stardom betwixt your hypothesis and your purpose. In a solubility experiment, for case, your hypothesis might talk about the relationship between temperature and the charge per unit of solubility, but the purpose is probably to learn more well-nigh some specific scientific principle underlying the process of solubility.

Hypothesis

For starters, well-nigh people say that yous should write out your working hypothesis before you perform the experiment or study. Many beginning science students fail to do so and find themselves struggling to remember precisely which variables were involved in the process or in what way the researchers felt that they were related. Write your hypothesis downward as you develop information technology—you'll be glad you did.

Every bit for the form a hypothesis should have, it's best non to be too fancy or complicated; an inventive way isn't nearly and so important every bit clarity hither. There's nothing wrong with beginning your hypothesis with the phrase, "It was hypothesized that . . ." Be as specific as y'all tin can nigh the human relationship between the dissimilar objects of your written report. In other words, explicate that when term A changes, term B changes in this particular way. Readers of scientific writing are rarely content with the idea that a relationship betwixt two terms exists—they desire to know what that human relationship entails.

Not a hypothesis:

"It was hypothesized that in that location is a significant relationship between the temperature of a solvent and the charge per unit at which a solute dissolves."

Hypothesis:

"It was hypothesized that as the temperature of a solvent increases, the rate at which a solute will dissolve in that solvent increases."

Put more technically, most hypotheses contain both an independent and a dependent variable. The contained variable is what you manipulate to test the reaction; the dependent variable is what changes as a result of your manipulation. In the example above, the independent variable is the temperature of the solvent, and the dependent variable is the rate of solubility. Be sure that your hypothesis includes both variables.

Justify your hypothesis

Y'all need to exercise more than tell your readers what your hypothesis is; you also need to assure them that this hypothesis was reasonable, given the circumstances. In other words, use the Introduction to explain that you didn't only pluck your hypothesis out of thin air. (If you did pluck it out of thin air, your problems with your written report volition probably extend across using the appropriate format.) If you posit that a item relationship exists between the contained and the dependent variable, what led you to believe your "guess" might be supported by evidence?

Scientists frequently refer to this type of justification as "motivating" the hypothesis, in the sense that something propelled them to brand that prediction. Often, motivation includes what nosotros already know—or rather, what scientists generally accept as true (see "Background/previous inquiry" beneath). Merely you tin also motivate your hypothesis by relying on logic or on your ain observations. If you're trying to decide which solutes will deliquesce more rapidly in a solvent at increased temperatures, you might remember that some solids are meant to dissolve in hot water (eastward.yard., burgoo cubes) and some are used for a function precisely because they withstand college temperatures (they make saucepans out of something). Or you tin think about whether yous've noticed sugar dissolving more quickly in your glass of iced tea or in your cup of java. Even such bones, outside-the-lab observations tin help you justify your hypothesis as reasonable.

Background/previous research

This part of the Introduction demonstrates to the reader your awareness of how y'all're building on other scientists' piece of work. If you think of the scientific community as engaging in a serial of conversations nigh various topics, then you'll recognize that the relevant groundwork material will alert the reader to which conversation y'all want to enter.

Generally speaking, authors writing journal articles employ the groundwork for slightly different purposes than practise students completing assignments. Because readers of bookish journals tend to be professionals in the field, authors explicate the background in club to permit readers to evaluate the study'south pertinence for their own piece of work. You, on the other hand, write toward a much narrower audience—your peers in the course or your lab instructor—and so you must demonstrate that you lot understand the context for the (presumably assigned) experiment or study you've completed. For example, if your professor has been talking about polarity during lectures, and yous're doing a solubility experiment, y'all might try to connect the polarity of a solid to its relative solubility in sure solvents. In whatsoever event, both professional researchers and undergraduates need to connect the groundwork fabric overtly to their own work.

Organization of this section

About of the fourth dimension, writers begin by stating the purpose or objectives of their own work, which establishes for the reader's benefit the "nature and scope of the trouble investigated" (Solar day 1994). In one case y'all accept expressed your purpose, you should and then detect it easier to motion from the full general purpose, to relevant material on the subject, to your hypothesis. In abbreviated course, an Introduction section might look similar this:

"The purpose of the experiment was to test conventional ideas about solubility in the laboratory [purpose] . . . According to Whitecoat and Labrat (1999), at college temperatures the molecules of solvents move more quickly . . . We know from the course lecture that molecules moving at higher rates of speed collide with i some other more than often and thus break down more easily [groundwork material/motivation] . . . Thus, information technology was hypothesized that as the temperature of a solvent increases, the charge per unit at which a solute will deliquesce in that solvent increases [hypothesis]."

Again—these are guidelines, non commandments. Some writers and readers adopt different structures for the Introduction. The one to a higher place merely illustrates a common approach to organizing fabric.

Methods and Materials

How practise I write a potent Materials and Methods section?

Equally with any slice of writing, your Methods department will succeed only if it fulfills its readers' expectations, so y'all need to be clear in your own mind well-nigh the purpose of this section. Let's review the purpose equally we described it above: in this section, yous desire to describe in item how you tested the hypothesis you adult and also to clarify the rationale for your procedure. In science, information technology's not sufficient merely to design and carry out an experiment. Ultimately, others must be able to verify your findings, so your experiment must be reproducible, to the extent that other researchers can follow the same procedure and obtain the same (or similar) results.

Here's a real-world instance of the importance of reproducibility. In 1989, physicists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman appear that they had discovered "cold fusion," a way of producing excess heat and ability without the nuclear radiation that accompanies "hot fusion." Such a discovery could accept great ramifications for the industrial production of energy, so these findings created a bang-up deal of interest. When other scientists tried to duplicate the experiment, yet, they didn't achieve the aforementioned results, and as a consequence many wrote off the conclusions equally unjustified (or worse, a hoax). To this twenty-four hour period, the viability of common cold fusion is debated within the scientific community, even though an increasing number of researchers believe it possible. So when you write your Methods section, keep in mind that you lot need to describe your experiment well enough to let others to replicate it exactly.

With these goals in listen, allow's consider how to write an effective Methods section in terms of content, structure, and style.

Content

Sometimes the hardest thing well-nigh writing this section isn't what you should talk nigh, only what yous shouldn't talk almost. Writers often want to include the results of their experiment, considering they measured and recorded the results during the class of the experiment. But such information should be reserved for the Results department. In the Methods section, y'all can write that yous recorded the results, or how you recorded the results (due east.g., in a table), but y'all shouldn't write what the results were—not yet. Here, you're just stating exactly how y'all went nearly testing your hypothesis. As you lot draft your Methods department, inquire yourself the post-obit questions:

• How much detail? Be precise in providing details, only stay relevant. Ask yourself, "Would it make whatsoever difference if this piece were a different size or made from a dissimilar material?" If not, you probably don't need to get too specific. If and then, you should requite as many details as necessary to prevent this experiment from going awry if someone else tries to carry information technology out. Probably the most crucial detail is measurement; you should always quantify anything yous can, such equally time elapsed, temperature, mass, volume, etc.
• Rationale: Be certain that equally you're relating your actions during the experiment, you explain your rationale for the protocol you developed. If you capped a exam tube immediately afterwards adding a solute to a solvent, why did y'all do that? (That's really two questions: why did you cap it, and why did yous cap it immediately?) In a professional person setting, writers provide their rationale as a way to explain their thinking to potential critics. On one hand, of course, that's your motivation for talking nearly protocol, also. On the other hand, since in practical terms you're also writing to your teacher (who's seeking to evaluate how well yous comprehend the principles of the experiment), explaining the rationale indicates that you understand the reasons for conducting the experiment in that way, and that you're not but following orders. Critical thinking is crucial—robots don't make good scientists.
• Control: Most experiments will include a control, which is a means of comparison experimental results. (Sometimes you lot'll need to accept more than one command, depending on the number of hypotheses you want to examination.) The control is exactly the same every bit the other items y'all're testing, except that you don't dispense the independent variable-the condition you're altering to bank check the effect on the dependent variable. For instance, if you're testing solubility rates at increased temperatures, your control would be a solution that you didn't oestrus at all; that way, you'll see how chop-chop the solute dissolves "naturally" (i.due east., without manipulation), and you lot'll have a point of reference against which to compare the solutions you lot did heat.

Depict the control in the Methods section. Two things are especially important in writing well-nigh the control: place the control as a command, and explain what you're decision-making for. Here is an case:

"Equally a command for the temperature alter, we placed the aforementioned corporeality of solute in the same amount of solvent, and let the solution stand for v minutes without heating information technology."

Structure and style

Organization is especially important in the Methods section of a lab report because readers must sympathize your experimental procedure completely. Many writers are surprised by the difficulty of conveying what they did during the experiment, since afterward all they're simply reporting an event, simply it's ofttimes tricky to present this information in a coherent manner. There'due south a fairly standard structure you can use to guide you lot, and following the conventions for style can assistance clarify your points.

• Subsections: Occasionally, researchers use subsections to study their process when the following circumstances apply: 1) if they've used a peachy many materials; 2) if the procedure is unusually complicated; 3) if they've developed a procedure that won't be familiar to many of their readers. Considering these conditions rarely apply to the experiments you'll perform in class, most undergraduate lab reports won't require you to employ subsections. In fact, many guides to writing lab reports suggest that you try to limit your Methods section to a unmarried paragraph.
• Narrative structure: Remember of this section as telling a story near a group of people and the experiment they performed. Describe what you did in the gild in which you did it. Y'all may accept heard the quondam joke centered on the line, "Disconnect the red wire, but only later disconnecting the green wire," where the person reading the directions blows everything to kingdom come because the directions weren't in order. We're used to reading near events chronologically, and then your readers will generally understand what yous did if yous present that information in the same manner. Also, since the Methods section does generally appear every bit a narrative (story), you want to avoid the "recipe" approach: "First, have a make clean, dry out 100 ml test tube from the rack. Adjacent, add l ml of distilled water." You should exist reporting what did happen, non telling the reader how to perform the experiment: "50 ml of distilled water was poured into a clean, dry out 100 ml examination tube." Hint: near of the time, the recipe approach comes from copying downwardly the steps of the procedure from your lab manual, so you may want to draft the Methods section initially without consulting your manual. Later, of course, you tin can become back and fill in any office of the procedure you inadvertently disregarded.
• By tense: Call up that you're describing what happened, so y'all should use past tense to refer to everything you did during the experiment. Writers are often tempted to apply the imperative ("Add 5 g of the solid to the solution") because that's how their lab manuals are worded; less frequently, they use present tense ("5 thou of the solid are added to the solution"). Instead, remember that yous're talking about an event which happened at a detail time in the past, and which has already concluded by the time you start writing, so uncomplicated by tense will exist appropriate in this department ("v 1000 of the solid were added to the solution" or "Nosotros added five g of the solid to the solution").
• Passive voice vs. first person: In the past, scientific journals encouraged their writers to avert using the start person ("I" or "nosotros"), considering the researchers themselves weren't personally important to the procedure in the experiment. Retrieve that other researchers should ideally be able to reproduce experiments exactly, based on the lab report; using beginning person indicates (to some readers) that the experiment cannot be duplicated without the original researchers present. To help go on personal references out of lab reports, scientific conventions also dictated that researchers should utilize passive voice, in which the subject field of a judgement or clause doesn't perform the action described past the verb. You can learn more in our handout on passive vocalism. These examples might explain the distinction between active and passive vocalization:
  
  • Active: We heated the solution to 80°C. (The bailiwick, "we," performs the action, heating.)
  • Passive: The solution was heated to 80°C. (The subject, "solution," doesn't exercise the heating–information technology is acted upon, not acting.)

Increasingly, peculiarly in the social sciences, using first person and active voice is adequate in scientific reports. Most readers observe that this style of writing conveys information more than clearly and concisely. This rhetorical choice thus brings two scientific values into disharmonize: objectivity versus clarity. Since the scientific community hasn't reached a consensus near which style information technology prefers, you may want to enquire your lab teacher.

Results

How do I write a strong Results section?

Here's a paradox for you. The Results section is ofttimes both the shortest (yay!) and well-nigh of import (uh-oh!) function of your report. Your Materials and Methods section shows how you obtained the results, and your Discussion section explores the significance of the results, so clearly the Results department forms the backbone of the lab report. This section provides the almost critical data about your experiment: the information that let you to discuss how your hypothesis was or wasn't supported. But it doesn't provide anything else, which explains why this section is generally shorter than the others.

Before you write this department, look at all the data you collected to figure out what relates significantly to your hypothesis. You'll want to highlight this material in your Results section. Resist the urge to include as of information you lot collected, since perhaps not all are relevant. Also, don't try to draw conclusions about the results—salvage them for the Discussion section. In this section, you lot're reporting facts. Nothing your readers can dispute should appear in the Results department.

Most Results sections characteristic three distinct parts: text, tables, and figures. Let'due south consider each part one at a fourth dimension.

Text

This should exist a brusk paragraph, generally merely a few lines, that describes the results you obtained from your experiment. In a relatively uncomplicated experiment, one that doesn't produce a lot of data for you to repeat, the text can represent the entire Results department. Don't feel that yous need to include lots of extraneous detail to recoup for a short (but effective) text; your readers appreciate discrimination more your ability to recite facts. In a more circuitous experiment, you may want to employ tables and/or figures to help guide your readers toward the well-nigh important information yous gathered. In that event, you'll need to refer to each table or figure direct, where advisable:

"Table ane lists the rates of solubility for each substance"

or

"Solubility increased as the temperature of the solution increased (see Figure 1)."

If you do use tables or figures, make sure that you don't present the same cloth in both the text and the tables/figures, since in essence you'll only repeat yourself, probably annoying your readers with the redundancy of your statements.

Feel costless to describe trends that emerge as you lot examine the information. Although identifying trends requires some judgment on your part and and so may non feel like factual reporting, no one can deny that these trends practise exist, and and so they properly vest in the Results section. Case:

"Heating the solution increased the charge per unit of solubility of polar solids past 45% just had no effect on the charge per unit of solubility in solutions containing non-polar solids."

This indicate isn't debatable—you're just pointing out what the data show.

Equally in the Materials and Methods section, you want to refer to your data in the past tense, considering the events you recorded have already occurred and have finished occurring. In the example above, note the use of "increased" and "had," rather than "increases" and "has." (You don't know from your experiment that heating always increases the solubility of polar solids, but it did that time.)

Tables

You shouldn't put information in the table that likewise appears in the text. You too shouldn't use a table to present irrelevant data, just to prove you did collect these data during the experiment. Tables are skillful for some purposes and situations, but not others, so whether and how you'll employ tables depends upon what yous need them to reach.

Tables are useful ways to show variation in information, simply not to nowadays a great deal of unchanging measurements. If you lot're dealing with a scientific phenomenon that occurs simply inside a certain range of temperatures, for example, you lot don't need to use a table to show that the miracle didn't occur at any of the other temperatures. How useful is this table?

As yous tin can probably see, no solubility was observed until the trial temperature reached fifty°C, a fact that the text function of the Results department could easily convey. The table could then exist express to what happened at 50°C and higher, thus better illustrating the differences in solubility rates when solubility did occur.

Every bit a rule, try not to apply a table to describe any experimental event you tin cover in one judgement of text. Here's an example of an unnecessary table from How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, past Robert A. Day:

As Solar day notes, all the information in this table can be summarized in one sentence: "S. griseus, S. coelicolor, S. everycolor, and S. rainbowenski grew under aerobic weather, whereas Due south. nocolor and S. greenicus required anaerobic atmospheric condition." Most readers won't detect the tabular array clearer than that one sentence.

When you exercise take reason to tabulate material, pay attending to the clarity and readability of the format y'all use. Hither are a few tips:

• Number your table. Then, when you lot refer to the table in the text, use that number to tell your readers which table they tin review to analyze the material.
• Give your tabular array a title. This title should be descriptive enough to communicate the contents of the table, but not so long that it becomes difficult to follow. The titles in the sample tables to a higher place are acceptable.
• Adjust your table and then that readers read vertically, not horizontally. For the most part, this rule means that you should construct your tabular array then that like elements read downwards, non across. Think about what you want your readers to compare, and put that information in the column (up and downwardly) rather than in the row (beyond). Usually, the betoken of comparison volition exist the numerical data you collect, and then particularly make sure you have columns of numbers, non rows.Here'southward an example of how drastically this decision affects the readability of your table (from A Short Guide to Writing about Chemistry, by Herbert Beall and John Trimbur). Wait at this table, which presents the relevant data in horizontal rows:

It's a petty tough to meet the trends that the author presumably wants to present in this table. Compare this table, in which the data announced vertically:

The second table shows how putting like elements in a vertical column makes for easier reading. In this case, the similar elements are the measurements of length and tiptop, over five trials–not, as in the beginning table, the length and height measurements for each trial.

• Make sure to include units of measurement in the tables. Readers might exist able to guess that you measured something in millimeters, but don't brand them try.
• Line up numbers on the right, like this:

  or on the decimal indicate. It may assistance to pretend that you lot're going to add the numbers together and marshal them accordingly.

• Don't use vertical lines as part of the format for your table. This convention exists considering journals prefer non to take to reproduce these lines because the tables then go more than expensive to print. Even though it's fairly unlikely that you'll be sending your Biology xi lab study to Science for publication, your readers nevertheless have this expectation. Consequently, if y'all use the table-cartoon pick in your word-processing software, choose the option that doesn't rely on a "grid" format (which includes vertical lines).

Figures

How do I include figures in my report?

Although tables tin exist useful ways of showing trends in the results yous obtained, figures (i.e., illustrations) can do an even better chore of emphasizing such trends. Lab report writers often use graphic representations of the data they collected to provide their readers with a literal picture of how the experiment went.

When should y'all utilize a figure?

Recall the circumstances under which you lot don't need a table: when you don't have a corking deal of data or when the data you have don't vary a lot. Under the aforementioned conditions, you would probably forgo the figure as well, since the effigy would exist unlikely to provide your readers with an additional perspective. Scientists actually don't similar their fourth dimension wasted, so they tend not to reply favorably to redundancy.

If yous're trying to determine between using a table and creating a effigy to nowadays your material, consider the following a rule of thumb. The strength of a table lies in its ability to supply big amounts of verbal information, whereas the forcefulness of a figure is its dramatic illustration of important trends inside the experiment. If you feel that your readers won't get the full bear upon of the results you obtained just by looking at the numbers, and then a figure might be appropriate.

Of grade, an undergraduate class may look you to create a effigy for your lab experiment, if only to brand sure that you tin do and then effectively. If this is the instance, and so don't worry well-nigh whether to employ figures or not—concentrate instead on how best to accomplish your task.

Figures can include maps, photographs, pen-and-ink drawings, flow charts, bar graphs, and section graphs ("pie charts"). But the most common effigy by far, specially for undergraduates, is the line graph, then we'll focus on that blazon in this handout.

At the undergraduate level, you lot tin frequently describe and label your graphs by mitt, provided that the issue is clear, legible, and drawn to calibration. Computer applied science has, yet, fabricated creating line graphs a lot easier. Most word-processing software has a number of functions for transferring data into graph form; many scientists have found Microsoft Excel, for instance, a helpful tool in graphing results. If you plan on pursuing a career in the sciences, it may be well worth your while to larn to apply a similar programme.

Computers can't, however, decide for y'all how your graph really works; you have to know how to design your graph to meet your readers' expectations. Here are some of these expectations:

• Go along it as unproblematic as possible. You may be tempted to signal the complexity of the information y'all gathered by trying to blueprint a graph that accounts for that complexity. But call up the purpose of your graph: to dramatize your results in a manner that's easy to see and grasp. Effort not to make the reader stare at the graph for a half hr to notice the of import line among the mass of other lines. For maximum effectiveness, limit yourself to three to five lines per graph; if you accept more data to demonstrate, use a set of graphs to business relationship for it, rather than trying to cram information technology all into a single effigy.
• Plot the independent variable on the horizontal (x) centrality and the dependent variable on the vertical (y) axis. Remember that the independent variable is the condition that y'all manipulated during the experiment and the dependent variable is the status that you lot measured to see if it inverse along with the independent variable. Placing the variables along their respective axes is mostly just a convention, but since your readers are accustomed to viewing graphs in this way, y'all're amend off not challenging the convention in your written report.
• Label each axis advisedly, and be peculiarly conscientious to include units of measure. You need to make sure that your readers empathize perfectly well what your graph indicates.
• Number and title your graphs. As with tables, the title of the graph should be informative merely curtailed, and y'all should refer to your graph by number in the text (e.g., "Figure 1 shows the increase in the solubility rate equally a part of temperature").
• Many editors of professional scientific journals prefer that writers distinguish the lines in their graphs by attaching a symbol to them, usually a geometric shape (triangle, foursquare, etc.), and using that symbol throughout the curve of the line. Generally, readers have a hard fourth dimension distinguishing dotted lines from dot-nuance lines from straight lines, so you should consider staying away from this organisation. Editors don't ordinarily similar unlike-colored lines within a graph because colors are hard and expensive to reproduce; colors may, nevertheless, be great for your purposes, as long every bit you're non planning to submit your paper to Nature. Use your discretion—try to employ whichever technique dramatizes the results almost finer.
• Attempt to assemble data at regular intervals, so the plot points on your graph aren't likewise far autonomously. You can't be sure of the arc you lot should depict between the plot points if the points are located at the far corners of the graph; over a fifteen-minute interval, perhaps the change occurred in the first or concluding thirty seconds of that period (in which case your straight-line connexion between the points is misleading).
• If you're worried that you didn't collect data at sufficiently regular intervals during your experiment, become ahead and connect the points with a straight line, but y'all may want to examine this problem every bit function of your Give-and-take section.
• Make your graph large enough so that everything is legible and clearly demarcated, only not so large that it either overwhelms the residual of the Results section or provides a far greater range than you lot need to illustrate your point. If, for example, the seedlings of your plant grew only xv mm during the trial, yous don't need to construct a graph that accounts for 100 mm of growth. The lines in your graph should more or less fill the infinite created by the axes; if yous see that your data is confined to the lower left portion of the graph, y'all should probably re-adjust your calibration.
• If you create a set of graphs, brand them the same size and format, including all the exact and visual codes (captions, symbols, scale, etc.). Y'all want to be as consequent equally possible in your illustrations, and then that your readers can easily make the comparisons you're trying to get them to come across.

Word

How practice I write a stiff Discussion section?

The give-and-take section is probably the least formalized part of the report, in that you can't really apply the aforementioned construction to every type of experiment. In simple terms, here you lot tell your readers what to make of the Results you obtained. If you have done the Results part well, your readers should already recognize the trends in the data and have a fairly clear thought of whether your hypothesis was supported. Considering the Results can seem and then self-explanatory, many students notice it hard to know what material to add together in this concluding section.

Basically, the Give-and-take contains several parts, in no particular order, only roughly moving from specific (i.eastward., related to your experiment only) to full general (how your findings fit in the larger scientific community). In this section, yous will, as a rule, demand to:

• Explain whether the data support your hypothesis
• Acknowledge whatsoever anomalous data or deviations from what yous expected
• Derive conclusions, based on your findings, about the procedure yous're studying
• Relate your findings to earlier work in the same area (if you can)
• Explore the theoretical and/or practical implications of your findings

Let'due south look at some dos and don'ts for each of these objectives.

Explain whether the information support your hypothesis

This statement is usually a good fashion to begin the Discussion, since yous can't effectively speak near the larger scientific value of your study until you've figured out the particulars of this experiment. You might brainstorm this part of the Discussion by explicitly stating the relationships or correlations your data indicate between the independent and dependent variables. Then you tin can evidence more conspicuously why you believe your hypothesis was or was not supported. For example, if you tested solubility at various temperatures, yous could start this section by noting that the rates of solubility increased as the temperature increased. If your initial hypothesis surmised that temperature alter would not affect solubility, y'all would then say something like,

"The hypothesis that temperature change would not bear on solubility was not supported by the data."

Note: Students tend to view labs as practical tests of undeniable scientific truths. As a event, y'all may want to say that the hypothesis was "proved" or "disproved" or that information technology was "correct" or "incorrect." These terms, however, reflect a degree of certainty that you equally a scientist aren't supposed to accept. Remember, y'all're testing a theory with a procedure that lasts simply a few hours and relies on simply a few trials, which severely compromises your ability to be certain nearly the "truth" you run into. Words like "supported," "indicated," and "suggested" are more than acceptable ways to evaluate your hypothesis.

Too, recognize that saying whether the data supported your hypothesis or not involves making a claim to be dedicated. As such, you lot need to prove the readers that this claim is warranted by the bear witness. Brand certain that you're very explicit about the relationship between the evidence and the conclusions you draw from it. This process is difficult for many writers considering nosotros don't oft justify conclusions in our regular lives. For case, you might nudge your friend at a political party and whisper, "That guy'south drunk," and once your friend lays eyes on the person in question, she might readily agree. In a scientific paper, by contrast, you would need to defend your merits more thoroughly by pointing to data such as slurred words, unsteady gait, and the lampshade-as-hat. In addition to pointing out these details, you would as well need to show how (according to previous studies) these signs are consistent with inebriation, especially if they occur in conjunction with ane another. To put information technology another manner, tell your readers exactly how you got from point A (was the hypothesis supported?) to indicate B (yes/no).

Acknowledge whatsoever anomalous data, or deviations from what you expected

Y'all need to take these exceptions and divergences into business relationship, so that you qualify your conclusions sufficiently. For obvious reasons, your readers will doubt your authority if y'all (deliberately or inadvertently) overlook a key piece of data that doesn't square with your perspective on what occurred. In a more philosophical sense, once y'all've ignored evidence that contradicts your claims, y'all've departed from the scientific method. The urge to "tidy upwardly" the experiment is ofttimes stiff, but if you lot give in to it you're no longer performing good science.

Sometimes afterwards yous've performed a written report or experiment, you realize that some part of the methods y'all used to test your hypothesis was flawed. In that instance, it's OK to suggest that if y'all had the chance to conduct your examination again, you might alter the design in this or that specific way in order to avoid such and such a trouble. The cardinal to making this approach piece of work, though, is to be very precise about the weakness in your experiment, why and how you lot think that weakness might take affected your data, and how you would alter your protocol to eliminate—or limit the effects of—that weakness. Often, inexperienced researchers and writers experience the demand to account for "wrong" information (call up, at that place'due south no such beast), and so they speculate wildly most what might have screwed things up. These speculations include such factors every bit the unusually hot temperature in the room, or the possibility that their lab partners read the meters wrong, or the potentially lacking equipment. These explanations are what scientists call "cop-outs," or "lame"; don't indicate that the experiment had a weakness unless you're fairly certain that a) it actually occurred and b) you lot can explain reasonably well how that weakness affected your results.

Derive conclusions, based on your findings, nearly the process yous're studying

If, for example, your hypothesis dealt with the changes in solubility at unlike temperatures, then try to figure out what y'all tin rationally say almost the process of solubility more than generally. If you're doing an undergraduate lab, chances are that the lab will connect in some manner to the material yous've been covering either in lecture or in your reading, so you lot might choose to return to these resources as a way to help you remember conspicuously about the process as a whole.

This part of the Discussion section is another place where yous need to make sure that you're non overreaching. Once again, nothing you've found in one study would remotely allow you to claim that you now "know" something, or that something isn't "true," or that your experiment "confirmed" some principle or other. Hesitate before you lot go out on a limb—it's dangerous! Use less absolutely conclusive language, including such words as "suggest," "indicate," "represent," "possibly," "challenge," etc.

Chronicle your findings to previous work in the field (if possible)

Nosotros've been talking about how to show that you belong in a particular customs (such as biologists or anthropologists) past writing within conventions that they recognize and accept. Another is to endeavour to identify a chat going on among members of that community, and utilize your piece of work to contribute to that conversation. In a larger philosophical sense, scientists can't fully understand the value of their enquiry unless they have some sense of the context that provoked and nourished information technology. That is, you have to recognize what's new nigh your projection (potentially, anyway) and how it benefits the wider trunk of scientific knowledge. On a more pragmatic level, especially for undergraduates, connecting your lab work to previous research will demonstrate to the TA that you see the large picture. You have an opportunity, in the Give-and-take section, to distinguish yourself from the students in your grade who aren't thinking beyond the barest facts of the study. Capitalize on this opportunity by putting your own work in context.

If y'all're just beginning to piece of work in the natural sciences (as a first-year biology or chemistry student, say), most likely the piece of work you'll be doing has already been performed and re-performed to a satisfactory degree. Hence, you could probably point to a similar experiment or study and compare/contrast your results and conclusions. More than advanced work may bargain with an consequence that is somewhat less "resolved," and so previous research may take the form of an ongoing fence, and you lot can use your own work to weigh in on that fence. If, for case, researchers are hotly disputing the value of herbal remedies for the common cold, and the results of your report suggest that Echinacea diminishes the symptoms but not the actual presence of the cold, so y'all might want to accept some time in the Give-and-take section to restate the specifics of the dispute as information technology relates to Echinacea as an herbal remedy. (Consider that yous have probably already written in the Introduction about this debate as background enquiry.)

Explore the theoretical and/or applied implications of your findings

This data is often the best way to end your Give-and-take (and, for all intents and purposes, the report). In argumentative writing more often than not, you lot want to use your endmost words to convey the main point of your writing. This main point tin can be primarily theoretical ("At present that you sympathize this data, you're in a better position to empathize this larger result") or primarily practical ("Yous can apply this data to take such and such an activeness"). In either case, the concluding statements help the reader to comprehend the significance of your project and your conclusion to write nearly information technology.

Since a lab written report is argumentative—after all, you're investigating a merits, and judging the legitimacy of that claim by generating and collecting evidence—it'due south often a good idea to end your report with the same technique for establishing your primary point. If you want to go the theoretical road, y'all might talk nigh the consequences your report has for the field or phenomenon you're investigating. To render to the examples regarding solubility, you lot could end by reflecting on what your piece of work on solubility as a function of temperature tells u.s.a. (potentially) about solubility in general. (Some folks consider this blazon of exploration "pure" as opposed to "practical" science, although these labels tin be problematic.) If you want to go the applied route, you could end by speculating about the medical, institutional, or commercial implications of your findings—in other words, reply the question, "What tin can this written report help people to do?" In either instance, you're going to brand your readers' experience more satisfying, by helping them see why they spent their time learning what you had to teach them.

Works consulted

Nosotros consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive listing of resources on the handout's topic, and we encourage you to practice your ain research to observe additional publications. Please practice not use this listing as a model for the format of your ain reference list, every bit it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

American Psychological Association. 2010. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Beall, Herbert, and John Trimbur. 2001. A Short Guide to Writing About Chemistry, 2nd ed. New York: Longman.

Blum, Deborah, and Mary Knudson. 1997. A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Clan of Science Writers. New York: Oxford University Press.

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory Grand. Colomb, Joseph One thousand. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Enquiry, 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Briscoe, Mary Helen. 1996. Preparing Scientific Illustrations: A Guide to Amend Posters, Presentations, and Publications, second ed. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Council of Science Editors. 2014. Scientific Mode and Format: The CSE Transmission for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 8th ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.

Davis, Martha. 2012. Scientific Papers and Presentations, third ed. London: Academic Press.

Day, Robert A. 1994. How to Write and Publish a Scientific Newspaper, 4th ed. Phoenix: Oryx Press.

Porush, David. 1995. A Short Guide to Writing About Science. New York: Longman.

Williams, Joseph, and Joseph Bizup. 2017. Way: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 12th ed. Boston: Pearson.

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