Student Guidelines for Writing a Formal Laboratory Report

Overview

An essential part of science is learning to communicate findings from a scientific investigation. Thus, preparation of a laboratory report in the form of a scientific paper is regarded as an important part of your learning. Formal laboratory reports are typically required in the sciences. A formal laboratory report is utilized either for writing up a given laboratory that you performed or for designing and conducting your own laboratory exercise.

These reports are an important mode of assessment and should represent your best work. Follow the content and format provided by your teacher and outlined below. There are 7 sections to the research report. Each section and the title are discussed separately in these guidelines. Specific attention is given to 4 essential writing elements including content, style, format and mechanics. In writing laboratory reports, you will find that these elements are closely linked to one another. These elements of writing are described below.

Content

In these guidelines, each section begins with a description of what content belongs in the section. Content has to do with the topic or subject matter that is to be reported in the section.

Style, Format and Mechanics

Each section of the guidelines provides suggestions about style of writing, format and mechanices. Style refers to the manner in which the section of the report is to be written. In writing a laboratory report, you’ll find the style varies from section to section. For example, the introduction is written in formal style (expository) that includes drawing on previous scientific work and using proper citation of references. In contrast, the methods and procedures sections follow different, structured list-type writing style.

Format describes how the information in each