Unless you are a very dedicated student, you have always asked yourself what a lab report is meant for. Well, lab reports are primarily written to describe as well as analyses laboratory experiments.
These experiments are meant to explore scientific concepts. Also, they are typically assigned to help one conduct a scientific research and formulate a hypothesis on a particular behavior or event. Below are more elaborate details on what lab reports are.
A good but simple lab report will normally go from two to five pages. In these said pages, the aims must feature in. These are also objectives. You are supposed to tell the reader what was the main purpose of conducting that experiment. It can be one aim or even several of them. It is also customary mentioning the apparatus that are to be used. Below is a good example of what should feature under this part:
“Determination of protein levels in a normal serum through spectrophotometry.”
Secondly, a lab report will go ahead to explain the method in which the experiment was carried out as well as materials used. Elaborate more on how you conducted your experiment telling your reader all the reagents that you applied. If you include some references in the method sections, most lecturers will be happier.
Another critical thing in a lab report is telling the reader what you found. Give the results after your lab experiment. It is raw data and is mainly presented in graphs as well as tables. Make a record of your data in tables then use tabulated data to do the graphing.
N.B.: In case your raw data becomes excessive, it would be nice presenting it under the appendix section.
Then proceed to give an interpretation or a summary of the results you have. This is under conclusion. It should be very brief and at times can appear in the table. It has to reflect the posed question and the aims. Don’t make it past one paragraph in length.
Finally, ask yourself, what did those results mean to me? This is what is known as discussion. Were the results expected by you? Why did you expect them? What problem do you think the practice has? Here discuss the negative as well as positive control to show that the method you applied workout out well.
N.B.: if the controls give you results within the expected ranges, then you can comfortably confirm the sample results validity. If not, then something must have gone wrong somewhere!
At the end remember to include a list of sources that you used under references.