Writing Project: Technical Report

Page Index:

1. Formal Report – Basic Layout & Section Descriptions
2. Formatting and Style Requirements
3. Before Submitting Your Report

The Formal Lab Report: General Content

Your scientific (technical) report will consist of the following sections:

1. Title
2. Abstract
3. I. Introduction
4. II. Procedure
5. III. Results
6. IV. Discussion
7. V. Conclusion
8. VI. References

There is general agreement among scientists that each section of the report should contain specific types of information.

Title Page

The cover page should be on a sheet by itself. This is the first page of the document.

The title should be less than ten words and should reflect the factual content of the paper. Scientific titles are not designed to catch the reader's fancy. A good title is straightforward and uses keywords that researchers in a particular field will recognize.

Also include, separate from the title, the name of each person in your group, as well as the Group Number.

Abstract

The abstract should be on a sheet by itself. This is the second page of the document.

The purpose of an abstract is to allow the reader to judge whether it would serve his or her purposes to read the entire report. A good abstract is a concise (100 to 200 words) summary of the purpose of the report, the data presented, and the author's major conclusions.

By analogy, think of the abstract as a consise summary of a movie: a summary of the action, the basic theme of the movie, and the "spoiler alert" ending.

I. Introduction

The body of the report starts on the third page. First, re-write the exact title (as shown on the Title Page) at the top of the third page, followed by the Introduction section.

The introduction defines the subject of the report. It must outline the scientific purpose(s) or objective(s) for the research performed and give the reader sufficient background to understand the rest of the report. Care should be taken to limit the background to whatever is pertinent to the experiment. A good introduction will answer several questions, including the following:

Why was this study performed?

Answers to this question may be derived from observations of nature or from the literature.

What knowledge already exists about this subject?

The answer to this question must review the literature, showing the historical development of an idea and including the confirmations, conflicts, and gaps in existing knowledge.

What is the specific purpose of the study?

The specific hypotheses and experimental design pertinent to investigating the topic should be described.

II. Procedure

As the name implies, the materials and methods used in the experiments should be reported in this section. The difficulty in writing this section is to provide enough detail for the reader to understand the experiment without overwhelming him or her. When procedures from a lab book or another report are followed exactly, simply cite the work, noting that details can be found in that particular source. However, it is still necessary to describe special pieces of equipment and the general theory of the assays used. This can usually be done in a short paragraph, possibly along with a drawing of the experimental apparatus. Generally, this section attempts to answer the following questions:

• What materials were used?
• How were they used?
• Where and when was the work done? (This question is most important in field studies.)

III. Results

The results section should summarize the data from the experiments without discussing their implications (the discussion and explanations are provided in the next — “Discussion” — section). The data should be organized into tables, figures, graphs, photographs, and so on.

All figures and tables must have descriptive titles and include a legend explaining any symbols, abbreviations, or special methods used. Figures and tables should be numbered separately and should be referred to in the text by number, for example:

• "Figure 1 shows that the activity decreased after five minutes."
• "The activity decreased after five minutes (fig. 1)."

Figures and tables should be self-explanatory; that is, the reader should be able to understand them without referring to the text. All columns and rows in tables and axes in figures should be labeled. Any significant calculations done with unfamiliar equations should be addressed and a sample calculations shown.

This section of your report should concentrate on general trends and differences and not on trivial details. Many authors organize and write the results section before the rest of the report.

The Results and Calculations and Discussion sections are inextricably linked. Any results or calculations should be addressed in the Discussion section; and discussions should refer back to data in the Results and Calculations section for supporting data.

IV. Discussion

This section should NOT just be a restatement of the results but should emphasize interpretation of the data, relating them to existing theory and knowledge. This is the “guts” of the report. Likely the longest, and most thoughtful, section. Speculation is appropriate, if it is so identified.

In writing this section, you should explain the logic that allows you to accept or reject your original hypotheses. Discussions should address all data, tables, diagrams, and calculations included in the Results and Calculations section.

This is the section where you "connect the dots." You, in technical terms and at a level of scientific knowledge, connect the dots between your Results and your Conclusions.

What Goes Into the Discussion?
An Analogy

Think of a 500 piece Lego kit of a sports car. The Results section is all of the pieces in the box (data), which you separated into little piles (Tables, Figures, calculations) for easy assembly. The picture on the cover of the box is your Conclusions — it's what you want others to see and understand at the end of the day. What is now needed are the instructions as to how to snap the pieces (Tables, Figures, calculaltions) together such that the final sports car is made. The Discussion Section is the instructons — it is the link between the data your organized, and the conclusion you drew. As with the Lego, you should detail how the Results 'prove' or 'make the case for' your Conclusions.

You should also be able to suggest future experiments that might clarify areas of doubt in your results. Suggestions for the improvement of techniques or experimental design may also be included here.

V. Conclusion

This section briefly, sometimes only a single paragraph, presents the overall conclusions drawn from the experiment. What was learned? Was the original expectations (hypothesis), which should be restated, met?

This section should mirror the abstract.

VI. Literature Cited

This section lists all articles or books cited in your report. It is not the same as a bibliography, which simply lists references regardless of whether they were cited in the paper. The listing should be alphabetized by the last names of the authors. Different journals require different formats for citing literature. The format that includes the most information is given in the following examples:

For articles:

Fox, J.W. 1988. Nest-building behavior of the catbird, Dumetella carolinensis. Journal of Ecology 47: 113-17.

For Books:

Bird, W.Z. 1990. Ecological aspects of fox reproduction. Berlin: Guttenberg Press.

For chapters in books:

Smith, C.J. 1989. Basal cell carcinomas. In Histological aspects of cancer, ed. C.D. Wilfred, pp. 278-91. Boston: Medical Press.

When citing references in the text, do not use footnotes; instead, refer to articles by the author's name and the date the paper was published. For example:

• "Fox in 1988 investigated the hormones on the nest-building behavior of catbirds."
• "Hormones are known to influence the nest-building behavior of catbirds (Fox, 1988)."

When citing papers that have two authors, both names must be listed. When three or more authors are involved, the Latin et al. (et alia) meaning "and others" may be used. A paper by Smith, Lynch, Merrill, and Beam published in 1989 would be cited in the text as:

• "Smith et al. (1989) have shown that..."

This short form is for text use only. In the References, all names would be listed, usually last name preceding initials.

There are a number of style manuals that provide detailed directions for writing scientific papers. Some are listed in further readings at the end of this section.

Formatting and Style Requirements

General Formatting & Style Requirments

1. 12 point font
2. Font type: Times new roman, Helvetica, or Garamond
3. Margins are 1 in top, bottom, left, and right
4. Must have a least one data table and one diagram
5. MLA style

Other Key requirements: grammar and syntax

1. Be aware that the word data is plural while datum is singular. This affects the choice of a correct verb. The word species is used both as a singular and as a plural.
2. Be sure to divide paragraphs correctly and to use starting and ending sentences that indicate the purpose of the paragraph. A report or a section of a report should not be one long paragraph.
3. Every sentence must have a subject and a verb.
4. Avoid using the first person, I or we, in writing. Keep your writing impersonal, in the third person. Instead of saying, "We weighed the frogs and put them in a glass jar," write, "The frogs were weighed and put in a glass jar."
5. Avoid the use of slang and the overuse of contractions.
6. Be consistent in the use of tense throughout a paragraph--do not switch between past and present. It is best to use past tense.
7. Be sure that pronouns refer to antecedents. For example, in the statement, "Sometimes cecropia caterpillars are in cherry trees but they are hard to find," does "they" refer to caterpillars or trees?

Other Key requirements: technical aspects

1. Use the metric system of measurements. Abbreviations of units are used without a following period.
2. Numbers should be written as numerals when they are greater than ten or when they are associated with measurements; for example, 6 mm or 2 g but two explanations of six factors. When one list includes numbers over and under ten, all numbers in the list may be expressed as numerals; for example, 17 sunfish, 13 bass, and 2 trout. Never start a sentence with numerals. Spell all numbers beginning sentences.
3. Measurements: A measurement is a number and a unit. Measurement values must include both the number and the unit. In a table, if the unit is clearly shown in the header, then each of the numbers in the column need not show the unit, for it is understood that each number carries the unit in the header. If the unit is not indicated in the header, then each cell must include both the number and the unit.
   (Note: of course, the obvious exception is unitless values, such as R_f or specific gravity.)
4. Equations: It is OK to write out equations in words, but also present them in standard algebraic form. Imagine if a textbook, for each incident of density, typed, " density is the mass of an object divided by its volume" rather than:   D = m/V
   The first time an equation is expressed in algebraic form, each of the variables must be described. For example:
   

   Density is defined as the mass of an object dividedy by its volume:
           D = m/V
   where D is the density, m the mass, and V the volume.

5. Tables and Figures: Your report will necessarily contain Tables and Figures (diagrams, charts, images, ect).
   All tables and figures must contain a descriptive title with both Table/Figure number and a brief-yet-informative description. For example:

      "Table 2. Measured versus calculated densities for various metals"
      "Figure 4. Picture of complete precipitation grid"

   Among other things, this allows for quick reference to the material.
   Tables may include row numbers. This allows for extremely efficient citation. For example:

   "As can be seen in Row 5 of Table 2, the density of lead showed the greatest difference between measured and calculated values. This is due to ..."

Before Submitting

Review your document

After writing a report, read it over, watching especially for lack of precision and for ambiguity. Each sentence should present a clear message. The following examples illustrate lack of precision:

• "The sample was incubated in mixture A minus B plus C."
  ... Does the mixture lack both B and C or lack B and contain C?
• The title "Protection against Carcinogenesis by Antioxidants" leaves the reader wondering whether antioxidants protect from or cause cancer

The only way to prevent such errors is to read and think about what you write. Learn to reread and edit your work.

Make sure you have meet all the basic requirements, as described above. Make a checklist, and go over it to confirm all items are present and within specification.

Have someone else review your document

AC has a tutoring center with tutors for the subjects of english and science. It is recommended that you get a tutor, or some other qualified individual, to review the document for both writing and scientific aspects.

Acknowledgement

This web page is based on a highly redacted version of an article by Dr. Warren D. Dolphin, modified to fit our specific course.
For original, see credits page entry.