English for Science

The purpose of the lab report is to enable you to: 

• Conduct thorough and effective scientific research. 
• Create a hypothesis(es) regarding a particular behaviour, event, and/or stimulus. 
• Relevant literature review to defend your hypothesis. 
• Let others imitate your research by delivering accurate details. 
• Use figures and statistics to test the validity of your hypothesis. 
• Analyze research methodically and objectively. 
• Explore theoretical explanations. 
• Communicate precisely and concisely. 

Usually, a lab report will contain several sections, including: Introduction, Equipment List, Procedures, Method, Data, and Discussion. Graphs and figures are also common in lab reports to support your claims or observations in the Discussion.  

Ideally, an introduction should have a funnel structure i.e., it should start broad and then become more specific. Furthermore, providing this background will help the reader to evaluate your work much better. An introduction should include: 

• Brief information on the topic, a general theory 
• Highlight specific research. 
• Explain the theoretical framework 
• Transition 
• Relevant details 
• Summarize previous studies 
• Rationale  
• Hypothesis 
• Aims explaining what you want to achieve and why? 

Make sure that you are only highlighting information absolutely necessary for your topic and study.  

In the equipment list, you should mention all the equipment or material used while testing or given in the lab manual. You need to mention the name and the number of equipment. Listing of equipment guarantees that you are using the same equipment in your testing process. This is for the readers to easily replicate your study. 

When you are writing the procedures, you should mention the exact steps that you followed while performing your experiment. This experimental procedure should be written thoroughly, step by step and in simple words so that any third person can duplicate it while performing their own experiment. You can start by highlighting how the apparatus was set up. You may do this with the help of a diagram. Then enlist the materials. After that, you can show the steps for gathering the data, and include any complications that might have occurred and how you overcame them. Including figures or flow charts can make this section simple and helpful. 

In the Method, subheadings such as Participants, Design and Materials should be used to display the way for recruiting participants, discuss the independent variables and dependent variables of your study, and illustrate how your data was collected.  

The numerical raw data that is obtained from your experiment is represented in a table form. The main purpose of data is to show what you observed while doing the experiment. Always keep in mind that data is a compilation of facts, so do not interpret it. 

In the lab report discussion section, data calculations are done and data is interpreted to determine whether your hypothesis was proved or not. You can also discuss any mistakes you made while conducting your experiment in plain English. Also, compare the results to the background materials along with its implications. In addition, you can propose further points for the success of future experiments. 

If you have included any graphs and figures in your report, make sure you have labelled them with a descriptive title. Don’t forget to mention the scientific units of measurements. Write the independent variable on X-axis and dependable variable on Y-axis. Also, refer to the graphs and figures in the text of your report. For instance, the first figure should be Figure 1, the second should be figure 2 and so on. The title should be written below the graph and to place the title above the table. 

You should adopt the APA (7th edition) citation style for all your in-text citations and the reference list.