lab report vs research paper

Scientific Reports

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 report, we’ll also attempt to convey why these rules exist, so you’ll get a clearer, more dependable idea of how to approach this writing situation. Readers of this handout may also find our handout on writing in the sciences useful.

Background and pre-writing

Why do we write research reports.

You did an experiment or study for your science class, and now you have to write it up for your teacher to review. You feel that you understood the background sufficiently, designed and completed the study effectively, obtained useful data, and can use those data to draw conclusions about 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 part of a scientific community, and the people who participate in this community tend to share the same values. As long as you understand and respect these values, your writing will likely meet the expectations of your audience—including your teacher.

So why are you writing this research report? The practical answer is “Because the teacher assigned it,” but that’s classroom thinking. Generally speaking, people investigating some scientific hypothesis have a responsibility to the rest of the scientific world to report their findings, particularly if these findings add to or contradict previous ideas. The people reading such reports have two primary goals:

• They want to gather the information presented.
• They want to know that the findings are legitimate.

Your job as a writer, then, is to fulfill these two goals.

How do I do that?

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

• Introduction

Methods and Materials

This format, sometimes called “IMRAD,” may take slightly different shapes depending on the discipline or audience; some ask you to include an abstract or separate section for the hypothesis, or call the Discussion section “Conclusions,” or change the order of the sections (some professional and academic journals require the Methods section to appear last). Overall, however, the IMRAD format was devised to represent a textual version of the scientific method.

The scientific method, you’ll probably recall, 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 table that shows how each written section fits into the scientific method and what additional information it offers the reader.

Thinking of your research report as based on the scientific method, but elaborated in the ways described above, may help you to meet your audience’s expectations successfully. We’re going to proceed by explicitly connecting each section of the lab report to the scientific method, then explaining why and how you need to elaborate that section.

Although this handout takes each section in the order in which it should be presented in the final report, you may for practical reasons decide to compose sections in another order. For example, many writers find that composing their Methods and Results before the other sections helps to clarify their idea of the experiment or study as a whole. You might consider using each assignment to practice different approaches to drafting the report, to find the order that works best for you.

What should I do before drafting the lab report?

The best way to prepare to write the lab report is to make sure that you fully understand everything you need to about the experiment. Obviously, if you don’t quite know what went on during the lab, you’re going to find it difficult to explain the lab satisfactorily to someone else. To make sure you know enough to write the report, complete the following steps:

• What are we going to do in this lab? (That is, what’s the procedure?)
• Why are we going to do it that way?
• What are we hoping to learn from this experiment?
• Why would we benefit from this knowledge?
• Consult your lab supervisor as you perform the lab. If you don’t know how to answer one of the questions above, for example, your lab supervisor will probably be able to explain it to you (or, at least, help you figure it out).
• Plan the steps of the experiment carefully with your lab partners. The less you rush, the more likely it is that you’ll perform the experiment correctly and record your findings accurately. Also, take some time to think about the best way to organize the data before you have to start putting numbers down. If you can design a table to account for the data, that will tend to work much better than jotting results down hurriedly on a scrap piece of paper.
• Record the data carefully so you get them right. You won’t be able to trust your conclusions if you have the wrong data, and your readers will know you messed up if the other three people in your group have “97 degrees” and you have “87.”
• Consult with your lab partners about everything you do. Lab groups often make one of two mistakes: two people do all the work while two have a nice chat, or everybody works together until the group finishes gathering the raw data, then scrams outta there. Collaborate with your partners, even when the experiment is “over.” What trends did you observe? Was the hypothesis supported? Did you all get the same results? What kind of figure should you use to represent your findings? The whole group can work together to answer these questions.
• Consider your audience. You may believe that audience is a non-issue: it’s your lab TA, right? Well, yes—but again, think beyond the classroom. If you write with only your lab instructor in mind, you may omit material that is crucial to a complete understanding of your experiment, because you assume the instructor knows all that stuff already. As a result, you may receive a lower grade, since your TA won’t be sure that you understand all the principles at work. Try to write towards a student in the same course but a different lab section. That student will have a fair degree of scientific expertise but won’t know much about your experiment particularly. Alternatively, you could envision yourself five years from now, after the reading and lectures for this course have faded a bit. What would you remember, and what would you need explained more clearly (as a refresher)?

Once you’ve completed these steps as you perform the experiment, you’ll be in a good position to draft an effective lab report.

Introductions

How do i write a strong introduction.

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

The inclusion of the purpose (sometimes called the objective) of the experiment often confuses writers. The biggest misconception is that the purpose is the same as the hypothesis. Not quite. We’ll get to hypotheses in a minute, but basically they provide some indication of what you expect the experiment to show. The purpose is broader, and deals more with what you expect to gain through the experiment. In a professional setting, the hypothesis might have something to do with how cells react to a certain kind of genetic manipulation, but the purpose of the experiment is to learn more about potential cancer treatments. Undergraduate reports don’t often have this wide-ranging a goal, but you should still try to maintain the distinction between your hypothesis and your purpose. In a solubility experiment, for example, your hypothesis might talk about the relationship between temperature and the rate of solubility, but the purpose is probably to learn more about some specific scientific principle underlying the process of solubility.

For starters, most people say that you should write out your working hypothesis before you perform the experiment or study. Many beginning science students neglect 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 down as you develop it—you’ll be glad you did.

As for the form a hypothesis should take, it’s best not to be too fancy or complicated; an inventive style isn’t nearly so important as clarity here. There’s nothing wrong with beginning your hypothesis with the phrase, “It was hypothesized that . . .” Be as specific as you can about the relationship between the different objects of your study. In other words, explain 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 between two terms exists—they want to know what that relationship entails.

Not a hypothesis:

“It was hypothesized that there is a significant relationship between the temperature of a solvent and the rate 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 independent 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

You need to do 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 just pluck your hypothesis out of thin air. (If you did pluck it out of thin air, your problems with your report will probably extend beyond using the appropriate format.) If you posit that a particular relationship exists between the independent and the dependent variable, what led you to believe your “guess” might be supported by evidence?

Scientists often refer to this type of justification as “motivating” the hypothesis, in the sense that something propelled them to make that prediction. Often, motivation includes what we already know—or rather, what scientists generally accept as true (see “Background/previous research” below). But you can also motivate your hypothesis by relying on logic or on your own observations. If you’re trying to decide which solutes will dissolve more rapidly in a solvent at increased temperatures, you might remember that some solids are meant to dissolve in hot water (e.g., bouillon cubes) and some are used for a function precisely because they withstand higher temperatures (they make saucepans out of something). Or you can think about whether you’ve noticed sugar dissolving more rapidly in your glass of iced tea or in your cup of coffee. Even such basic, outside-the-lab observations can help you justify your hypothesis as reasonable.

Background/previous research

This part of the Introduction demonstrates to the reader your awareness of how you’re building on other scientists’ work. If you think of the scientific community as engaging in a series of conversations about various topics, then you’ll recognize that the relevant background material will alert the reader to which conversation you want to enter.

Generally speaking, authors writing journal articles use the background for slightly different purposes than do students completing assignments. Because readers of academic journals tend to be professionals in the field, authors explain the background in order to permit readers to evaluate the study’s pertinence for their own 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 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 you’re doing a solubility experiment, you might try to connect the polarity of a solid to its relative solubility in certain solvents. In any event, both professional researchers and undergraduates need to connect the background material overtly to their own work.

Organization of this section

Most of the time, 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 problem investigated” (Day 1994). Once you have expressed your purpose, you should then find it easier to move from the general purpose, to relevant material on the subject, to your hypothesis. In abbreviated form, an Introduction section might look like this:

“The purpose of the experiment was to test conventional ideas about solubility in the laboratory [purpose] . . . According to Whitecoat and Labrat (1999), at higher temperatures the molecules of solvents move more quickly . . . We know from the class lecture that molecules moving at higher rates of speed collide with one another more often and thus break down more easily [background material/motivation] . . . Thus, it was hypothesized that as the temperature of a solvent increases, the rate at which a solute will dissolve in that solvent increases [hypothesis].”

Again—these are guidelines, not commandments. Some writers and readers prefer different structures for the Introduction. The one above merely illustrates a common approach to organizing material.

How do I write a strong Materials and Methods section?

As with any piece of writing, your Methods section will succeed only if it fulfills its readers’ expectations, so you need to be clear in your own mind about the purpose of this section. Let’s review the purpose as we described it above: in this section, you want to describe in detail how you tested the hypothesis you developed and also to clarify the rationale for your procedure. In science, it’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 example of the importance of reproducibility. In 1989, physicists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman announced that they had discovered “cold fusion,” a way of producing excess heat and power without the nuclear radiation that accompanies “hot fusion.” Such a discovery could have great ramifications for the industrial production of energy, so these findings created a great deal of interest. When other scientists tried to duplicate the experiment, however, they didn’t achieve the same results, and as a result many wrote off the conclusions as unjustified (or worse, a hoax). To this day, the viability of 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 need to describe your experiment well enough to allow others to replicate it exactly.

With these goals in mind, let’s consider how to write an effective Methods section in terms of content, structure, and style.

Sometimes the hardest thing about writing this section isn’t what you should talk about, but what you shouldn’t talk about. Writers often want to include the results of their experiment, because they measured and recorded the results during the course of the experiment. But such data should be reserved for the Results section. In the Methods section, you can write that you recorded the results, or how you recorded the results (e.g., in a table), but you shouldn’t write what the results were—not yet. Here, you’re merely stating exactly how you went about testing your hypothesis. As you draft your Methods section, ask yourself the following questions:

• How much detail? Be precise in providing details, but stay relevant. Ask yourself, “Would it make any difference if this piece were a different size or made from a different material?” If not, you probably don’t need to get too specific. If so, you should give as many details as necessary to prevent this experiment from going awry if someone else tries to carry it out. Probably the most crucial detail is measurement; you should always quantify anything you can, such as time elapsed, temperature, mass, volume, etc.
• Rationale: Be sure that as you’re relating your actions during the experiment, you explain your rationale for the protocol you developed. If you capped a test tube immediately after adding a solute to a solvent, why did you do that? (That’s really two questions: why did you cap it, and why did you cap it immediately?) In a professional 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 about protocol, too. On the other hand, since in practical terms you’re also writing to your teacher (who’s seeking to evaluate how well you 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 just following orders. Critical thinking is crucial—robots don’t make good scientists.
• Control: Most experiments will include a control, which is a means of comparing experimental results. (Sometimes you’ll need to have more than one control, depending on the number of hypotheses you want to test.) The control is exactly the same as the other items you’re testing, except that you don’t manipulate the independent variable-the condition you’re altering to check the effect on the dependent variable. For example, if you’re testing solubility rates at increased temperatures, your control would be a solution that you didn’t heat at all; that way, you’ll see how quickly the solute dissolves “naturally” (i.e., without manipulation), and you’ll have a point of reference against which to compare the solutions you did heat.

Describe the control in the Methods section. Two things are especially important in writing about the control: identify the control as a control, and explain what you’re controlling for. Here is an example:

“As a control for the temperature change, we placed the same amount of solute in the same amount of solvent, and let the solution stand for five minutes without heating it.”

Structure and style

Organization is especially important in the Methods section of a lab report because readers must understand your experimental procedure completely. Many writers are surprised by the difficulty of conveying what they did during the experiment, since after all they’re only reporting an event, but it’s often tricky to present this information in a coherent way. There’s a fairly standard structure you can use to guide you, and following the conventions for style can help clarify your points.

• Subsections: Occasionally, researchers use subsections to report their procedure when the following circumstances apply: 1) if they’ve used a great 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. Because these conditions rarely apply to the experiments you’ll perform in class, most undergraduate lab reports won’t require you to use subsections. In fact, many guides to writing lab reports suggest that you try to limit your Methods section to a single paragraph.
• Narrative structure: Think of this section as telling a story about a group of people and the experiment they performed. Describe what you did in the order in which you did it. You may have heard the old joke centered on the line, “Disconnect the red wire, but only after 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 about events chronologically, and so your readers will generally understand what you did if you present that information in the same way. Also, since the Methods section does generally appear as a narrative (story), you want to avoid the “recipe” approach: “First, take a clean, dry 100 ml test tube from the rack. Next, add 50 ml of distilled water.” You should be reporting what did happen, not telling the reader how to perform the experiment: “50 ml of distilled water was poured into a clean, dry 100 ml test tube.” Hint: most of the time, the recipe approach comes from copying down 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 can go back and fill in any part of the procedure you inadvertently overlooked.
• Past tense: Remember that you’re describing what happened, so you should use past tense to refer to everything you did during the experiment. Writers are often tempted to use 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 g of the solid are added to the solution”). Instead, remember that you’re talking about an event which happened at a particular time in the past, and which has already ended by the time you start writing, so simple past tense will be appropriate in this section (“5 g of the solid were added to the solution” or “We added 5 g of the solid to the solution”).
• Active: We heated the solution to 80°C. (The subject, “we,” performs the action, heating.)
• Passive: The solution was heated to 80°C. (The subject, “solution,” doesn’t do the heating–it is acted upon, not acting.)

Increasingly, especially in the social sciences, using first person and active voice is acceptable in scientific reports. Most readers find that this style of writing conveys information more clearly and concisely. This rhetorical choice thus brings two scientific values into conflict: objectivity versus clarity. Since the scientific community hasn’t reached a consensus about which style it prefers, you may want to ask your lab instructor.

How do I write a strong Results section?

Here’s a paradox for you. The Results section is often both the shortest (yay!) and most important (uh-oh!) part 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 section forms the backbone of the lab report. This section provides the most critical information about your experiment: the data that allow 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 section, 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 every bit of data you collected, since perhaps not all are relevant. Also, don’t try to draw conclusions about the results—save them for the Discussion section. In this section, you’re reporting facts. Nothing your readers can dispute should appear in the Results section.

Most Results sections feature three distinct parts: text, tables, and figures. Let’s consider each part one at a time.

This should be a short paragraph, generally just a few lines, that describes the results you obtained from your experiment. In a relatively simple experiment, one that doesn’t produce a lot of data for you to repeat, the text can represent the entire Results section. Don’t feel that you need to include lots of extraneous detail to compensate for a short (but effective) text; your readers appreciate discrimination more than your ability to recite facts. In a more complex experiment, you may want to use tables and/or figures to help guide your readers toward the most important information you gathered. In that event, you’ll need to refer to each table or figure directly, where appropriate:

“Table 1 lists the rates of solubility for each substance”

“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 material in both the text and the tables/figures, since in essence you’ll just repeat yourself, probably annoying your readers with the redundancy of your statements.

Feel free to describe trends that emerge as you examine the data. Although identifying trends requires some judgment on your part and so may not feel like factual reporting, no one can deny that these trends do exist, and so they properly belong in the Results section. Example:

“Heating the solution increased the rate of solubility of polar solids by 45% but had no effect on the rate of solubility in solutions containing non-polar solids.”

This point isn’t debatable—you’re just pointing out what the data show.

As in the Materials and Methods section, you want to refer to your data in the past tense, because 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.)

You shouldn’t put information in the table that also appears in the text. You also shouldn’t use a table to present irrelevant data, just to show you did collect these data during the experiment. Tables are good for some purposes and situations, but not others, so whether and how you’ll use tables depends upon what you need them to accomplish.

Tables are useful ways to show variation in data, but not to present a great deal of unchanging measurements. If you’re dealing with a scientific phenomenon that occurs only within a certain range of temperatures, for example, you don’t need to use a table to show that the phenomenon didn’t occur at any of the other temperatures. How useful is this table?

As you can probably see, no solubility was observed until the trial temperature reached 50°C, a fact that the text part of the Results section could easily convey. The table could then be limited to what happened at 50°C and higher, thus better illustrating the differences in solubility rates when solubility did occur.

As a rule, try not to use a table to describe any experimental event you can cover in one sentence of text. Here’s an example of an unnecessary table from How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper , by Robert A. Day:

As 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 conditions, whereas S. nocolor and S. greenicus required anaerobic conditions.” Most readers won’t find the table clearer than that one sentence.

When you do have reason to tabulate material, pay attention to the clarity and readability of the format you use. Here are a few tips:

• Number your table. Then, when you refer to the table in the text, use that number to tell your readers which table they can review to clarify the material.
• Give your table 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 above are acceptable.
• Arrange your table so that readers read vertically, not horizontally. For the most part, this rule means that you should construct your table so that like elements read down, not across. Think about what you want your readers to compare, and put that information in the column (up and down) rather than in the row (across). Usually, the point of comparison will be the numerical data you collect, so especially make sure you have columns of numbers, not rows.Here’s 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). Look at this table, which presents the relevant data in horizontal rows:

It’s a little tough to see the trends that the author presumably wants to present in this table. Compare this table, in which the data appear vertically:

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

• Make sure to include units of measurement in the tables. Readers might be able to guess that you measured something in millimeters, but don’t make them try.
• Don’t use vertical lines as part of the format for your table. This convention exists because journals prefer not to have to reproduce these lines because the tables then become more expensive to print. Even though it’s fairly unlikely that you’ll be sending your Biology 11 lab report to Science for publication, your readers still have this expectation. Consequently, if you use the table-drawing option in your word-processing software, choose the option that doesn’t rely on a “grid” format (which includes vertical lines).

How do I include figures in my report?

Although tables can be useful ways of showing trends in the results you obtained, figures (i.e., illustrations) can do an even better job 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 you use a figure?

Remember the circumstances under which you don’t need a table: when you don’t have a great deal of data or when the data you have don’t vary a lot. Under the same conditions, you would probably forgo the figure as well, since the figure would be unlikely to provide your readers with an additional perspective. Scientists really don’t like their time wasted, so they tend not to respond favorably to redundancy.

If you’re trying to decide between using a table and creating a figure to present your material, consider the following a rule of thumb. The strength of a table lies in its ability to supply large amounts of exact data, whereas the strength of a figure is its dramatic illustration of important trends within the experiment. If you feel that your readers won’t get the full impact of the results you obtained just by looking at the numbers, then a figure might be appropriate.

Of course, an undergraduate class may expect you to create a figure for your lab experiment, if only to make sure that you can do so effectively. If this is the case, then don’t worry about whether to use 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 figure by far, especially for undergraduates, is the line graph, so we’ll focus on that type in this handout.

At the undergraduate level, you can often draw and label your graphs by hand, provided that the result is clear, legible, and drawn to scale. Computer technology has, however, made 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 example, a helpful tool in graphing results. If you plan on pursuing a career in the sciences, it may be well worth your while to learn to use a similar program.

Computers can’t, however, decide for you 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:

• Keep it as simple as possible. You may be tempted to signal the complexity of the information you gathered by trying to design a graph that accounts for that complexity. But remember the purpose of your graph: to dramatize your results in a manner that’s easy to see and grasp. Try not to make the reader stare at the graph for a half hour to find the important line among the mass of other lines. For maximum effectiveness, limit yourself to three to five lines per graph; if you have more data to demonstrate, use a set of graphs to account for it, rather than trying to cram it all into a single figure.
• Plot the independent variable on the horizontal (x) axis and the dependent variable on the vertical (y) axis. Remember that the independent variable is the condition that you manipulated during the experiment and the dependent variable is the condition that you measured to see if it changed 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, you’re better off not challenging the convention in your report.
• Label each axis carefully, and be especially careful to include units of measure. You need to make sure that your readers understand perfectly well what your graph indicates.
• Number and title your graphs. As with tables, the title of the graph should be informative but concise, and you should refer to your graph by number in the text (e.g., “Figure 1 shows the increase in the solubility rate as a function 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, square, etc.), and using that symbol throughout the curve of the line. Generally, readers have a hard time distinguishing dotted lines from dot-dash lines from straight lines, so you should consider staying away from this system. Editors don’t usually like different-colored lines within a graph because colors are difficult and expensive to reproduce; colors may, however, be great for your purposes, as long as you’re not planning to submit your paper to Nature. Use your discretion—try to employ whichever technique dramatizes the results most effectively.
• Try to gather data at regular intervals, so the plot points on your graph aren’t too far apart. You can’t be sure of the arc you should draw 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 last thirty seconds of that period (in which case your straight-line connection between the points is misleading).
• If you’re worried that you didn’t collect data at sufficiently regular intervals during your experiment, go ahead and connect the points with a straight line, but you may want to examine this problem as part of your Discussion section.
• Make your graph large enough so that everything is legible and clearly demarcated, but not so large that it either overwhelms the rest of the Results section or provides a far greater range than you need to illustrate your point. If, for example, the seedlings of your plant grew only 15 mm during the trial, you 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 space created by the axes; if you see that your data is confined to the lower left portion of the graph, you should probably re-adjust your scale.
• If you create a set of graphs, make them the same size and format, including all the verbal and visual codes (captions, symbols, scale, etc.). You want to be as consistent as possible in your illustrations, so that your readers can easily make the comparisons you’re trying to get them to see.

How do I write a strong Discussion section?

The discussion section is probably the least formalized part of the report, in that you can’t really apply the same structure to every type of experiment. In simple terms, here you 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 idea of whether your hypothesis was supported. Because the Results can seem so self-explanatory, many students find it difficult to know what material to add in this last section.

Basically, the Discussion contains several parts, in no particular order, but roughly moving from specific (i.e., related to your experiment only) to general (how your findings fit in the larger scientific community). In this section, you will, as a rule, need to:

Explain whether the data support your hypothesis

• Acknowledge any anomalous data or deviations from what you expected

Derive conclusions, based on your findings, about the process you’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’s look at some dos and don’ts for each of these objectives.

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

“The hypothesis that temperature change would not affect solubility was not supported by the data.”

Note: Students tend to view labs as practical tests of undeniable scientific truths. As a result, you may want to say that the hypothesis was “proved” or “disproved” or that it was “correct” or “incorrect.” These terms, however, reflect a degree of certainty that you as a scientist aren’t supposed to have. Remember, you’re testing a theory with a procedure that lasts only a few hours and relies on only a few trials, which severely compromises your ability to be sure about the “truth” you see. Words like “supported,” “indicated,” and “suggested” are more acceptable ways to evaluate your hypothesis.

Also, recognize that saying whether the data supported your hypothesis or not involves making a claim to be defended. As such, you need to show the readers that this claim is warranted by the evidence. Make sure 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 because we don’t often justify conclusions in our regular lives. For example, you might nudge your friend at a party and whisper, “That guy’s 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 claim 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 also need to show how (according to previous studies) these signs are consistent with inebriation, especially if they occur in conjunction with one another. To put it another way, tell your readers exactly how you got from point A (was the hypothesis supported?) to point B (yes/no).

Acknowledge any anomalous data, or deviations from what you expected

You need to take these exceptions and divergences into account, so that you qualify your conclusions sufficiently. For obvious reasons, your readers will doubt your authority if you (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 you’ve ignored evidence that contradicts your claims, you’ve departed from the scientific method. The urge to “tidy up” the experiment is often strong, but if you give in to it you’re no longer performing good science.

Sometimes after you’ve performed a study or experiment, you realize that some part of the methods you used to test your hypothesis was flawed. In that case, it’s OK to suggest that if you had the chance to conduct your test again, you might change the design in this or that specific way in order to avoid such and such a problem. The key to making this approach work, though, is to be very precise about the weakness in your experiment, why and how you think that weakness might have affected your data, and how you would alter your protocol to eliminate—or limit the effects of—that weakness. Often, inexperienced researchers and writers feel the need to account for “wrong” data (remember, there’s no such animal), and so they speculate wildly about what might have screwed things up. These speculations include such factors as the unusually hot temperature in the room, or the possibility that their lab partners read the meters wrong, or the potentially defective 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 really occurred and b) you can explain reasonably well how that weakness affected your results.

If, for example, your hypothesis dealt with the changes in solubility at different temperatures, then try to figure out what you can rationally say about the process of solubility more generally. If you’re doing an undergraduate lab, chances are that the lab will connect in some way to the material you’ve been covering either in lecture or in your reading, so you might choose to return to these resources as a way to help you think clearly about the process as a whole.

This part of the Discussion section is another place where you need to make sure that you’re not overreaching. 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 go out on a limb—it’s dangerous! Use less absolutely conclusive language, including such words as “suggest,” “indicate,” “correspond,” “possibly,” “challenge,” etc.

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

We’ve been talking about how to show that you belong in a particular community (such as biologists or anthropologists) by writing within conventions that they recognize and accept. Another is to try to identify a conversation going on among members of that community, and use your work to contribute to that conversation. In a larger philosophical sense, scientists can’t fully understand the value of their research unless they have some sense of the context that provoked and nourished it. That is, you have to recognize what’s new about your project (potentially, anyway) and how it benefits the wider body 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 big picture. You have an opportunity, in the Discussion section, to distinguish yourself from the students in your class who aren’t thinking beyond the barest facts of the study. Capitalize on this opportunity by putting your own work in context.

If you’re just beginning to work in the natural sciences (as a first-year biology or chemistry student, say), most likely the 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 advanced work may deal with an issue that is somewhat less “resolved,” and so previous research may take the form of an ongoing debate, and you can use your own work to weigh in on that debate. If, for example, researchers are hotly disputing the value of herbal remedies for the common cold, and the results of your study suggest that Echinacea diminishes the symptoms but not the actual presence of the cold, then you might want to take some time in the Discussion section to recapitulate the specifics of the dispute as it relates to Echinacea as an herbal remedy. (Consider that you have probably already written in the Introduction about this debate as background research.)

This information is often the best way to end your Discussion (and, for all intents and purposes, the report). In argumentative writing generally, you want to use your closing words to convey the main point of your writing. This main point can be primarily theoretical (“Now that you understand this information, you’re in a better position to understand this larger issue”) or primarily practical (“You can use this information to take such and such an action”). In either case, the concluding statements help the reader to comprehend the significance of your project and your decision to write about it.

Since a lab report is argumentative—after all, you’re investigating a claim, and judging the legitimacy of that claim by generating and collecting evidence—it’s often a good idea to end your report with the same technique for establishing your main point. If you want to go the theoretical route, you might talk about the consequences your study has for the field or phenomenon you’re investigating. To return to the examples regarding solubility, you could end by reflecting on what your work on solubility as a function of temperature tells us (potentially) about solubility in general. (Some folks consider this type of exploration “pure” as opposed to “applied” science, although these labels can be problematic.) If you want to go the practical route, you could end by speculating about the medical, institutional, or commercial implications of your findings—in other words, answer the question, “What can this study help people to do?” In either case, you’re going to make your readers’ experience more satisfying, by helping them see why they spent their time learning what you had to teach them.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as 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 Association of Science Writers . New York: Oxford University Press.

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Research , 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Briscoe, Mary Helen. 1996. Preparing Scientific Illustrations: A Guide to Better Posters, Presentations, and Publications , 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag.

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

Davis, Martha. 2012. Scientific Papers and Presentations , 3rd ed. London: Academic Press.

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

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

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

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Lab Report Format: Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

In psychology, a lab report outlines a study’s objectives, methods, results, discussion, and conclusions, ensuring clarity and adherence to APA (or relevant) formatting guidelines.

A typical lab report would include the following sections: title, abstract, introduction, method, results, and discussion.

The title page, abstract, references, and appendices are started on separate pages (subsections from the main body of the report are not). Use double-line spacing of text, font size 12, and include page numbers.

The report should have a thread of arguments linking the prediction in the introduction to the content of the discussion.

This must indicate what the study is about. It must include the variables under investigation. It should not be written as a question.

Title pages should be formatted in APA style .

The abstract provides a concise and comprehensive summary of a research report. Your style should be brief but not use note form. Look at examples in journal articles . It should aim to explain very briefly (about 150 words) the following:

• Start with a one/two sentence summary, providing the aim and rationale for the study.
• Describe participants and setting: who, when, where, how many, and what groups?
• Describe the method: what design, what experimental treatment, what questionnaires, surveys, or tests were used.
• Describe the major findings, including a mention of the statistics used and the significance levels, or simply one sentence summing up the outcome.
• The final sentence(s) outline the study’s “contribution to knowledge” within the literature. What does it all mean? Mention the implications of your findings if appropriate.

The abstract comes at the beginning of your report but is written at the end (as it summarises information from all the other sections of the report).

Introduction

The purpose of the introduction is to explain where your hypothesis comes from (i.e., it should provide a rationale for your research study).

Ideally, the introduction should have a funnel structure: Start broad and then become more specific. The aims should not appear out of thin air; the preceding review of psychological literature should lead logically into the aims and hypotheses.

• Start with general theory, briefly introducing the topic. Define the important key terms.
• Explain the theoretical framework.
• Summarise and synthesize previous studies – What was the purpose? Who were the participants? What did they do? What did they find? What do these results mean? How do the results relate to the theoretical framework?
• Rationale: How does the current study address a gap in the literature? Perhaps it overcomes a limitation of previous research.
• Aims and hypothesis. Write a paragraph explaining what you plan to investigate and make a clear and concise prediction regarding the results you expect to find.

There should be a logical progression of ideas that aids the flow of the report. This means the studies outlined should lead logically to your aims and hypotheses.

Do be concise and selective, and avoid the temptation to include anything in case it is relevant (i.e., don’t write a shopping list of studies).

USE THE FOLLOWING SUBHEADINGS:

Participants

• How many participants were recruited?
• Say how you obtained your sample (e.g., opportunity sample).
• Give relevant demographic details (e.g., gender, ethnicity, age range, mean age, and standard deviation).
• State the experimental design .
• What were the independent and dependent variables ? Make sure the independent variable is labeled and name the different conditions/levels.
• For example, if gender is the independent variable label, then male and female are the levels/conditions/groups.
• How were the IV and DV operationalized?
• Identify any controls used, e.g., counterbalancing and control of extraneous variables.
• List all the materials and measures (e.g., what was the title of the questionnaire? Was it adapted from a study?).
• You do not need to include wholesale replication of materials – instead, include a ‘sensible’ (illustrate) level of detail. For example, give examples of questionnaire items.
• Include the reliability (e.g., alpha values) for the measure(s).
• Describe the precise procedure you followed when conducting your research, i.e., exactly what you did.
• Describe in sufficient detail to allow for replication of findings.
• Be concise in your description and omit extraneous/trivial details, e.g., you don’t need to include details regarding instructions, debrief, record sheets, etc.
• Assume the reader has no knowledge of what you did and ensure that he/she can replicate (i.e., copy) your study exactly by what you write in this section.
• Write in the past tense.
• Don’t justify or explain in the Method (e.g., why you chose a particular sampling method); just report what you did.
• Only give enough detail for someone to replicate the experiment – be concise in your writing.
• The results section of a paper usually presents descriptive statistics followed by inferential statistics.
• Report the means, standard deviations, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for each IV level. If you have four to 20 numbers to present, a well-presented table is best, APA style.
• Name the statistical test being used.
• Report appropriate statistics (e.g., t-scores, p values ).
• Report the magnitude (e.g., are the results significant or not?) as well as the direction of the results (e.g., which group performed better?).
• It is optional to report the effect size (this does not appear on the SPSS output).
• Avoid interpreting the results (save this for the discussion).
• Make sure the results are presented clearly and concisely. A table can be used to display descriptive statistics if this makes the data easier to understand.
• DO NOT include any raw data.
• Follow APA style.

Use APA Style

• Numbers reported to 2 d.p. (incl. 0 before the decimal if 1.00, e.g., “0.51”). The exceptions to this rule: Numbers which can never exceed 1.0 (e.g., p -values, r-values): report to 3 d.p. and do not include 0 before the decimal place, e.g., “.001”.
• Percentages and degrees of freedom: report as whole numbers.
• Statistical symbols that are not Greek letters should be italicized (e.g., M , SD , t , X 2 , F , p , d ).
• Include spaces on either side of the equals sign.
• When reporting 95%, CIs (confidence intervals), upper and lower limits are given inside square brackets, e.g., “95% CI [73.37, 102.23]”
• Outline your findings in plain English (avoid statistical jargon) and relate your results to your hypothesis, e.g., is it supported or rejected?
• Compare your results to background materials from the introduction section. Are your results similar or different? Discuss why/why not.
• How confident can we be in the results? Acknowledge limitations, but only if they can explain the result obtained. If the study has found a reliable effect, be very careful suggesting limitations as you are doubting your results. Unless you can think of any c onfounding variable that can explain the results instead of the IV, it would be advisable to leave the section out.
• Suggest constructive ways to improve your study if appropriate.
• What are the implications of your findings? Say what your findings mean for how people behave in the real world.
• Suggest an idea for further research triggered by your study, something in the same area but not simply an improved version of yours. Perhaps you could base this on a limitation of your study.
• Concluding paragraph – Finish with a statement of your findings and the key points of the discussion (e.g., interpretation and implications) in no more than 3 or 4 sentences.

Reference Page

The reference section lists all the sources cited in the essay (alphabetically). It is not a bibliography (a list of the books you used).

In simple terms, every time you refer to a psychologist’s name (and date), you need to reference the original source of information.

If you have been using textbooks this is easy as the references are usually at the back of the book and you can just copy them down. If you have been using websites then you may have a problem as they might not provide a reference section for you to copy.

References need to be set out APA style :

Author, A. A. (year). Title of work . Location: Publisher.

Journal Articles

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Article title. Journal Title, volume number (issue number), page numbers

A simple way to write your reference section is to use Google scholar . Just type the name and date of the psychologist in the search box and click on the “cite” link.

Next, copy and paste the APA reference into the reference section of your essay.

Once again, remember that references need to be in alphabetical order according to surname.

Psychology Lab Report Example

Quantitative paper template.

Quantitative professional paper template: Adapted from “Fake News, Fast and Slow: Deliberation Reduces Belief in False (but Not True) News Headlines,” by B. Bago, D. G. Rand, and G. Pennycook, 2020,  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General ,  149 (8), pp. 1608–1613 ( https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000729 ). Copyright 2020 by the American Psychological Association.

Qualitative paper template

Qualitative professional paper template: Adapted from “‘My Smartphone Is an Extension of Myself’: A Holistic Qualitative Exploration of the Impact of Using a Smartphone,” by L. J. Harkin and D. Kuss, 2020,  Psychology of Popular Media ,  10 (1), pp. 28–38 ( https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000278 ). Copyright 2020 by the American Psychological Association.

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Chemistry writing resources, starting a lab report or research paper, general writing style information, parts of research paper or report.

• Citations and References
• Return to Main Chemistry Guide

To get started writing a research paper or laboratory report, it is important to consider if you have enough data or enough information to compose a paper.  Additionally, it is also important to consider what you want you want to report and how to report it--clear communication of results is crucial when discussing the experiments. 

This American Chemical Society (ACS) blog post on  How to Write a Research Paper provides some general guidelines to determine when to write a paper and how to get started when it comes to reporting and communicating the results of an experiment or experiments.

Every discipline has a style and format that is used for scholarly communication, and chemistry as a field has a certain format for papers as well as a a style of writing that developed as the field itself grew and information was shared and published.

General Style and Writing Guidelines:

• Chemistry is always written in the third person, in the past-tense and passive voice. 
• Pronouns like "I", "We", and "Us" are not typically used
• Be succinct when describing observations and processes
• It is not necessary to provide detailed descriptions of standard practices or techniques. 

For information on specific sections that might appear in a scholarly article or laboratory report you may wish to go to the next section in this guide that provides a summary on all the different Parts of A Research Paper and provides links to articles that provide significant detail regarding the style and content for each major section.

Note: While the resources in the guide are meant to help, it is always important to follow the guidelines of the publication or course instructor that you are writing for.

Adapted from information found in Chapter 2 of the ACS Style Guide

Additional resources and information on each sections are also provided from the journal Clinical Chemistry from the section of their journal "Guide To Scientific Writing." Click on the title for a direct link to the PDF or use the corresponding citation for each article to view the online version. All articles are open access articles.

The title should be brief and specific enough to clearly communicate the contents of the paper/research, but should not be overly technical.

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: The Title Says it All

Thomas M Annesley, The Title Says It All, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 3, 1 March 2010, Pages 357–360, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2009.141523

The byline or list of authors includes all individuals that contributed in a substantial manner to the research being reported.

Generally, the person that did the research is listed as the first author of the paper and names are traditionally formatted as "first name, middle initial, and surname"

The abstract should provide an informative and brief summary of what is written in the paper, and should allow for a reader to quickly understand the nature/purpose of the research, the methods used, the results observed, and any major conclusions that came from the research.

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: The Abstract and the Elevator Talk: A Tale of Two Summaries

Thomas M Annesley, The Abstract and the Elevator Talk: A Tale of Two Summaries, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 4, 1 April 2010, Pages 521–524, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2009.142026

An introduction puts the experiment or research into context; it should provide background regarding the question or problem being explored and using applicable scientific literature and references help explain why the question being answered or the research being pursued is relevant and/or important.

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: It was a cold and rainy night”: Set the Scene with a Good Introduction

Thomas M Annesley, “It was a cold and rainy night”: Set the Scene with a Good Introduction, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 5, 1 May 2010, Pages 708–713, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2010.143628

Depending upon the publication or style, this section has many different possible names; chose the correct name for the section based upon the publication to which the research is being submitted or the laboratory report is meant to emulate. 

This section should provide information regarding the techniques used in answering your research question and should say HOW the research question was probed or answered with enough information that another practitioner in the field could reproduce the experiment and results.  In order to accomplish these goals, the experimental section should  identify the materials used and must also provide sufficient details about characterization methods, experimental procedures, or any apparatus used  that is not standard for the field.

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why: The Ingredients in the Recipe for a Successful Methods Section

Thomas M Annesley, Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why: The Ingredients in the Recipe for a Successful Methods Section, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 6, 1 June 2010, Pages 897–901, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2010.146589

The data collected or the results of the research/experiment are presented and summarized in this section often using graphs, tables, or equations.  When dealing with a large amount of data, the results section provides a summary while additional results or data can be included in a supporting information section. 

It is important to remember that in this section, the results are NOT put into context nor are the results or observations explained. 

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: Show Your Cards: The Results Section and the Poker Game

Thomas M Annesley, Show Your Cards: The Results Section and the Poker Game, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 7, 1 July 2010, Pages 1066–1070, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2010.148148

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: If an IRDAM Journal Is What You Choose, Then Sequential Results Are What You Use

              IRDAM = Introduction, Results, Discussion, Methods in terms of order of sections. Many ACS Journals follow this format!

              IMRAD = Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion in terms of order of sections

Pamela A Derish, Thomas M Annesley, If an IRDAM Journal Is What You Choose, Then Sequential Results Are What You Use, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 8, 1 August 2010, Pages 1226–1228, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2010.150961

The discussion section highlights and interprets the results or data obtained and explains how the resulting data relates to the original research question.  It explains how and why the results obtained  are significant.  It is appropriate to examine and explain why the results were observed and why the data was interpreted in a specific way. This is also the section where additional research or further work regarding the research question can be stated.

The results and the discussion can be presented as a combined "Results and Discussion" section if it makes sense to do so.

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: The Discussion Section: Your Closing Argument

Thomas M Annesley, The Discussion Section: Your Closing Argument, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 11, 1 November 2010, Pages 1671–1674, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2010.155358 '

Figures and tables should be included in the Results or the Results and discussion section and should support, clarify, and make your work more clear through a visual, organized, representation of the data collected.

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: Put Your Best Figure Forward: Line Graphs and Scattergrams

Thomas M Annesley, Put Your Best Figure Forward: Line Graphs and Scattergrams, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 8, 1 August 2010, Pages 1229–1233, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2010.150060

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: Bars and Pies Make Better Desserts than Figures

Thomas M Annesley, Bars and Pies Make Better Desserts than Figures, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 9, 1 September 2010, Pages 1394–1400, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2010.152298

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: Bring Your Best to the Table

Thomas M Annesley, Bring Your Best to the Table, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 56, Issue 10, 1 October 2010, Pages 1528–1534, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2010.153502

The conclusion provides a brief summary of what was accomplished in a manner similar to the abstract, but the conclusion should specifically address how the results of the research relate back to the original question or problem.

A list of the published works that were cited in the paper or report using the proper citation and reference format for the field and publication (e.g. citing and providing a reference list using the American Chemical Society guidelines).

• Clinical Chemistry -Guide to Scientific Writing: Giving Credit: Citations and References

Thomas M Annesley, Giving Credit: Citations and References, Clinical Chemistry , Volume 57, Issue 1, 1 January 2011, Pages 14–17, https://doi.org/10.1373/clinchem.2010.158048

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How to Improve Lab Report Writing: Best practices to follow with and without AI-assistance

Imagine you’re a scientist who just made a ground-breaking discovery! You want to share your breakthrough with the world, but how? By writing a comprehensive lab report, of course. Communicating your research clearly and consistently is a crucial part of becoming a true researcher or increasing your academic literacy.

Lab reports are fundamental to scientific research, serving as a crucial means to communicate findings, methodologies , and conclusions. A well-written lab report is the key to unlock the door to scientific communication, allowing you to document your methods, present your findings, and have your work reviewed and replicated by others in the field.

But don’t be intimidated – writing a lab report is like following a recipe, with clearly defined sections and a standard format. So put on your lab coat, grab your pen (or laptop), and let’s dive into the exciting world of lab report writing!

Table of Contents

What are Lab Reports

Lab reports are detailed documents that describe and analyze an experiment or scientific study that was conducted. It outlines the methodology, results, and conclusions of an experiment or research study. Furthermore, it formally communicates the scientific process and outcomes clearly and concisely. The purpose of a lab report are as follows:

Overall, lab reports are crucial for documenting, communicating, analyzing, and disseminating scientific research in a standardized and reproducible manner, ultimately driving the progress of science. However, an excellent lab report should have the following elements:

Because several elements of a lab report overlap with those of a research paper , they are often confused with each other. While both involve scientific writing, their purposes differ significantly.

Difference Between a Lab Report and a Research Paper

Research papers and lab reports are often conflated, leading to confusion. While a research paper presents new knowledge or theories, a lab report focuses on the specifics of an experiment and its results. Furthermore, lab reports are shorter than a research paper. Quite often, mentors or course instructors provides an experimental design and procedure. As a result, lab reports require less effort as your major task revolves around writing about how you performed the experiment and assessed the outcome. Contrastingly, a research paper requires more effort as you have to build an argument, combined with in-depth research and analysis of the data sources. Therefore, lab reports are usually shorter and easier to write as compared to a research paper.

Challenges in Writing Error-free Lab Reports

Writing error-free lab reports can be a daunting task, even for experienced researchers. Although manual writing and reviewing processes have been the traditional approach for report writing, they are subject to some limitations as follows:

1. Human Error

Even the most meticulous researchers can make mistakes or overlook errors, particularly when dealing with lengthy or complex reports.

2. Inconsistency

Without standardized templates or automated checks, formatting, terminology, and organizational structure can vary significantly between reports, even within the same research group.

3. Inefficiency

Manual writing, editing , and reviewing processes can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, potentially slowing down the dissemination of research findings.

4. Limited Scalability

As the volume of research and the number of lab reports increase, manual approaches become increasingly challenging and unsustainable, particularly in large research institutions or collaborative projects.

5. Lack of Real-time Collaboration

Traditional manual writing and reviewing processes often involve back-and-forth exchanges, making real-time collaboration and simultaneous editing difficult.

Furthermore, the above mentioned challenges can hinder the accurate and timely dissemination of research findings. Overcoming these hurdles is crucial to effectively communicate your scientific work. However, as these challenges become increasingly pronounced, highlighting the potential benefits of incorporating technological solutions to streamline the lab report writing process becomes necessary.

Traditional vs. AI-assisted Lab Report Writing

There are several differences between the traditional approaches to lab report writing and AI-assisted lab report writing in terms of the process, challenges, and potential outcomes.

While AI-assisted lab report writing can streamline certain processes and augment human capabilities, it is essential to strike a balance between leveraging AI’s strengths and maintaining human expertise, critical thinking, and oversight. The ideal approach may involve iterative collaboration between AI and human researchers, with AI handling data-intensive tasks and humans providing subject matter expertise, interpretation, and final review. Here are some best practices for integrating AI into the lab report writing process.

• Familiarize yourself with your institution’s policies and guidelines regarding the use of AI tools in academic work or in writing assignments.
• Utilize tools like TrinkaAI for proofreading , editing, and detecting plagiarism to refine your content.
• Clearly distinguish AI-generated content through proper citations, quotations, or other methods recommended by your institution.
• Critically evaluate and verify AI output before incorporating it into your lab report to ensure accuracy and relevance.

Although AI tools offer several benefits in writing lab reports, there are several ethical challenges associated with its use. Here are some tips for enhancing lab report writing with AI-assistance while minimizing ethical considerations.

1. Define Roles:

Establish distinct roles for AI and human writers. AI can be used for tasks like data analysis, literature review, and preliminary draft generation, while human experts should focus on critical thinking, interpretation, and final review. Furthermore, researchers/human experts must ensure the data used to train the AI model is accurate, unbiased, and representative of the research topic.

2. Maintain Transparency:

Disclose the use of AI in the research process, including the model’s capabilities, limitations, and potential biases. Additionally, document the AI model’s architecture, training data, and parameters to ensure reproducibility and facilitate peer review. Moreover, confirm if your institution or funding body permits the use of AI in report writing and clearly attribute the contributions of the AI model and human authors in the report.

3. Ensure Subject Matter Expertise:

Ensure that the AI model is trained on relevant scientific literature and data specific to the research domain. Human experts can curate and validate the training data. Therefore, verify and fact-check the information generated by the AI model against authoritative sources.

4. Address Ethical Considerations:

Adhere to ethical guidelines for AI-assisted writing, addressing concerns like authorship attribution, plagiarism, and bias. Also, scrutinize the generated content for potential data manipulation and address the ethical concerns related to its use.

5. Assure Quality:

Implement quality assurance measures, such as peer review, fact-checking, and plagiarism detection, to ensure the accuracy in the final report. Implement measures to detect and prevent plagiarism, as AI models may inadvertently reproduce copyrighted content. Furthermore, maintain human oversight and review throughout the AI-assisted writing process to ensure accuracy, relevance, and coherence.

6. Training and Education:

Provide training and education to human writers on how to effectively collaborate with AI systems, understand their capabilities and limitations, and interpret their outputs.

By following these practices, researchers can leverage the benefits of AI while maintaining high standards of quality, ethics, and transparency in their research report writing.

By combining the strengths of AI and human expertise through clear role definition, iterative collaboration, subject matter expertise, ethical guidelines, quality assurance, and proper training, researchers can streamline the lab report writing process while maintaining high standards of quality, accuracy, and scientific rigor.

Mastering lab report writing is a valuable skill for researchers across all levels. Whether you choose traditional methods or embrace AI-assisted approaches, understanding the fundamentals and best practices will lead to clearer, more impactful lab reports. Ready to craft a dynamic lab report? Kickstart your next project now!

Frequently Asked Questions

The structure of a lab report typically includes the title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and reference.

There are several types of lab reports, each serving different purposes and formats depending on the specific requirements of the experiment and the field of study. Some common types are Formal Lab, Informal Lab Reports, Research Reports, Case Studies, Review Papers, Technical Reports, Field Trip Reports, and Posters and Presentations. Each type of lab report has its own format and style, tailored to the specific audience and purpose of the report.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing the Experimental Report: Overview, Introductions, and Literature Reviews

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Written for undergraduate students and new graduate students in psychology (experimental), this handout provides information on writing in psychology and on experimental report and experimental article writing.

Experimental reports (also known as "lab reports") are reports of empirical research conducted by their authors. You should think of an experimental report as a "story" of your research in which you lead your readers through your experiment. As you are telling this story, you are crafting an argument about both the validity and reliability of your research, what your results mean, and how they fit into other previous work.

These next two sections provide an overview of the experimental report in APA format. Always check with your instructor, advisor, or journal editor for specific formatting guidelines.

General-specific-general format

Experimental reports follow a general to specific to general pattern. Your report will start off broadly in your introduction and discussion of the literature; the report narrows as it leads up to your specific hypotheses, methods, and results. Your discussion transitions from talking about your specific results to more general ramifications, future work, and trends relating to your research.

Experimental reports in APA format have a title page. Title page formatting is as follows:

• A running head and page number in the upper right corner (right aligned)
• A definition of running head in IN ALL CAPS below the running head (left aligned)
• Vertically and horizontally centered paper title, followed by author and affiliation

Please see our sample APA title page .

Crafting your story

Before you begin to write, carefully consider your purpose in writing: what is it that you discovered, would like to share, or would like to argue? You can see report writing as crafting a story about your research and your findings. Consider the following.

• What is the story you would like to tell?
• What literature best speaks to that story?
• How do your results tell the story?
• How can you discuss the story in broad terms?

During each section of your paper, you should be focusing on your story. Consider how each sentence, each paragraph, and each section contributes to your overall purpose in writing. Here is a description of one student's process.

Briel is writing an experimental report on her results from her experimental psychology lab class. She was interested in looking at the role gender plays in persuading individuals to take financial risks. After her data analysis, she finds that men are more easily persuaded by women to take financial risks and that men are generally willing to take more financial risks.

When Briel begins to write, she focuses her introduction on financial risk taking and gender, focusing on male behaviors. She then presents relevant literature on financial risk taking and gender that help illuminate her own study, but also help demonstrate the need for her own work. Her introduction ends with a study overview that directly leads from the literature review. Because she has already broadly introduced her study through her introduction and literature review, her readers can anticipate where she is going when she gets to her study overview. Her methods and results continue that story. Finally, her discussion concludes that story, discussing her findings, implications of her work, and the need for more research in the area of gender and financial risk taking.

The abstract gives a concise summary of the contents of the report.

• Abstracts should be brief (about 100 words)
• Abstracts should be self-contained and provide a complete picture of what the study is about
• Abstracts should be organized just like your experimental report—introduction, literature review, methods, results and discussion
• Abstracts should be written last during your drafting stage

Introduction

The introduction in an experimental article should follow a general to specific pattern, where you first introduce the problem generally and then provide a short overview of your own study. The introduction includes three parts: opening statements, literature review, and study overview.

Opening statements: Define the problem broadly in plain English and then lead into the literature review (this is the "general" part of the introduction). Your opening statements should already be setting the stage for the story you are going to tell.

Literature review: Discusses literature (previous studies) relevant to your current study in a concise manner. Keep your story in mind as you organize your lit review and as you choose what literature to include. The following are tips when writing your literature review.

• You should discuss studies that are directly related to your problem at hand and that logically lead to your own hypotheses.
• You do not need to provide a complete historical overview nor provide literature that is peripheral to your own study.
• Studies should be presented based on themes or concepts relevant to your research, not in a chronological format.
• You should also consider what gap in the literature your own research fills. What hasn't been examined? What does your work do that others have not?

Study overview: The literature review should lead directly into the last section of the introduction—your study overview. Your short overview should provide your hypotheses and briefly describe your method. The study overview functions as a transition to your methods section.

You should always give good, descriptive names to your hypotheses that you use consistently throughout your study. When you number hypotheses, readers must go back to your introduction to find them, which makes your piece more difficult to read. Using descriptive names reminds readers what your hypotheses were and allows for better overall flow.

In our example above, Briel had three different hypotheses based on previous literature. Her first hypothesis, the "masculine risk-taking hypothesis" was that men would be more willing to take financial risks overall. She clearly named her hypothesis in the study overview, and then referred back to it in her results and discussion sections.

Thais and Sanford (2000) recommend the following organization for introductions.

• Provide an introduction to your topic
• Provide a very concise overview of the literature
• State your hypotheses and how they connect to the literature
• Provide an overview of the methods for investigation used in your research

Bem (2006) provides the following rules of thumb for writing introductions.

• Write in plain English
• Take the time and space to introduce readers to your problem step-by-step; do not plunge them into the middle of the problem without an introduction
• Use examples to illustrate difficult or unfamiliar theories or concepts. The more complicated the concept or theory, the more important it is to have clear examples
• Open with a discussion about people and their behavior, not about psychologists and their research

The Laboratory Report

The Laboratory Report 1,2

Authors: M. C. Nagan and J. M. McCormick

Quick Links

Introduction

The research paper is the primary means of communication in science. The research paper presents the results of the experiment and interpretation of the data, describes the rationale and design of the experiment, provides a context for the results in terms of previous findings and assesses the overall success of the experiment(s). Scientists working in industrial laboratories do not write as many journal articles as their colleagues in academia, but they routinely write progress reports, which take the same form as a journal article. So no matter what your career goals are, it is important that you become familiar with this style of writing.

There are set rules for preparing a journal article (or a laboratory report). The style requirements vary only slightly from journal to journal, but there are far more similarities than differences in the scientific writing style.  If you are writing an article for publication in a particular journal (or preparing a laboratory report in the style of a particular journal) you should consult the Instructions to Authors section of the journal’s website (this information is also included in the journal’s first issue of each year).

There are several style guides 3, 4   and articles 5 to help scientists and students prepare their manuscripts.  The most useful of these to chemists is the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) ACS Style Guide, which may be found in the Truman library or may be purchased from the ACS web site . Because of the variation in journal styles, and the requirements for a specific course, your instructor will inform you of specific style requirements for his or her class. This guide is based on the Journal of the American Chemical Society style, 6 and is meant to provide a good starting point for writing a laboratory report.  It is not meant to be the definitive style guide; you must adjust your style to your audience and the journal in which your results will be published.

General Editorial Issues

Although we shouldn’t, all of us are swayed by first impressions.  How your paper appears to the journal editor or reviewer is their first impression of your science, and it will color their impression of your results, if you let it.  Nothing is worse than a sloppily prepared paper with no page numbers, a font that can’t be read or which is full of grammatical errors.  Remember that everyone will assume that if you did not take the time to write your paper carefully, you did not take the time to do your science carefully.

The following are some general editorial guidelines to follow that will leave a good first impression with your readers.

General Stylistic Issues

Uniformity of style is the key to scientific communication. The journal editors, the referees who review a manuscript, and the journal readers who are interested in the results presented in a paper all expect certain things to be present in a manuscript and that they are in a certain order.  Just like the sloppy-looking paper, a paper that does not adhere to the expected style reflects poorly on the author, no matter how good the science is.

Organization/Components

Sections should appear in your paper in the order described below. All sections but the title have the section explicitly labeled, usually in bold letters to differentiate it from the rest of the text, and left aligned on the page. A blank line should appear after the last word of the section to separate the various sections, but a line should not be placed after the section title.

Please note that you should not physically assemble your paper in this order. Instead, it is suggested that you compose: a) Materials and Methods, b) Figures, Figure Legends and Tables, c) Results, d) Discussion, e) Conclusions, f) Introduction and Schemes, g) Abstract, and h) Title. Then put all the sections together in the final paper in the order outlined above.

A template is available to help you organize your report.  Click here to learn more about it.

Subsections

It may be helpful to organize sections further into subsections. These subsections should have their own titles that are italicized and followed by a period.

Description of Paper Components

Title/Title Page

A title reflects the emphasis and contents of the paper. It tells the reader the paper’s topic and it also entices the reader to continue reading further. Therefore, it is not uncommon for the title to reveal the results or major conclusions of the experiment. Examples are given below. The title should be on its own page (the title page), left-aligned at the top of the page, in bold letters.  Note that in some journals the title’s font size is 2 points larger than the text (i. e., 14-point, if the rest of the paper is in a standard 12-point font).  However, this is not standardized and you should check with your instructor for which format he/she wants you to follow.

The title must be brief (2 lines maximum) and grammatically correct. Under the title, write your name and your professional address in italics ( Department of Chemistry, Truman State University, 100 East Normal, Kirksville, MO 63501 ).

The abstract is a one-paragraph summary of the paper that is written in the present tense. As the abstract is the only part of the paper that is entered into article databases, it should be able to stand alone, separate from the paper. The first one to three sentences of the abstract should briefly introduce the reader to the problem studied. Next, the scientific approach, major results and primary significance of the findings should be presented. The abstract is generally 150-200 words (less for shorter papers). This section is normally written after the body of the paper. Because the abstract is separate from the paper, all abbreviations should be written out, or defined, and any references should be written out in full.  An example of how a reference might appear in an abstract is

Note that in some journals that inclusion of the title in a reference is not required ( vide infra ).

The introduction should present the scientific problem at hand to the reader. Explain to the reader why the experiment was conducted, how it was designed and perhaps, if appropriate, what was found. Literature that is relevant should be incorporated and will help the reader understand the context of your study. A good rule of thumb is to start at the most general topic and progressively move towards the specific. Here is a general outline for an introduction:

In this section, consider including figures, schemes and equations that complement the text.

While this is similar to the information that you should have written your notebook, the introduction to a paper is different than the background that you included for an experiment (or experiments) in your notebook.  Remember that you are trying to reach a larger, more general audience with your paper, and the introduction must be structured to draw the reader in and help them focus on your important results.

Experimental

The experimental section of your paper should be a logical, coherent recount of the experiment(s) conducted. This section should be complete enough for a trained scientist to pick up your report and replicate your experiment. The experimental section in a laboratory report is more concise than the corresponding section in the laboratory notebook. It should not be a step-by-step procedure of the activities carried out during the laboratory period.

The first paragraph of the experimental section contains information on key chemicals used in the procedure.  When the chemicals are used as received, there will usually be a statement to that effect and further details are not usually necessary.   You will list the chemical supplier’s name and the substance’s purity will be noted in cases where the chemical is hard to find, it is of a special purity or if there is only one supplier.  Do not list lot numbers. If a starting material was synthesized according to a literature procedure, then state this in the opening paragraph and reference the procedure. If purification or drying of the compounds is required, it is described here, also.

The first paragraph often will also list the instruments used to characterize the newly synthesized substances. All instruments and equipment should be specified including the model number of the instrument and the name of the manufacturer (serial numbers are not included). When a spectroscopic or physical method is the focus of the report, it will be described in its own subsection. You are not required to write the experimental in this fashion. 

For common techniques, laboratory textbooks should be referenced. However, if a previously published procedure was modified, then this is stated and only the modifications performed are included. If the procedure is your own, then outline the procedure with the main points, including details that are critical to replicating the experiment. These might include the type and size of your HPLC column, the buffer or the concentrations of chemicals.

When the syntheses of substances are reported, the synthetic procedure used to make each substance is described in its own separate paragraph. The paragraph begins with the name of substance, or its abbreviation (if the abbreviation was defined earlier in the paper), in bold face. If numbers are assigned to the compounds, these are also included (in parentheses). Often the synthesis will be written out, even when a literature procedure was followed. The mass and percent yields must be reported. Some of the new compound’s characteristics are included at the end of the paragraph describing its synthesis. These include: melting point range (and literature value, if known), elemental analysis (both calculated and found), selected peaks from the mass spectrum (with assignments), selected IR peaks (also with assignments), and any NMR peaks with their chemical shift, multiplicity and integration (you will often find the observed coupling quoted and the assignment of the peaks).  The following is an example of how to report a compound’s synthesis.

The experimental section has two quirky wrinkles on the general scientific style.  These are:

In the Results section, the results are presented and summarized in a reader-friendly form. Raw data are not presented here. For instance, it is appropriate to include the average calculated concentration of a solution but not the original absorbance values that were collected from the spectrophotometer; that information is best left in your laboratory notebook.

Graphs and tables often make the data easier to interpret and more understandable (click here to review graph preparation). A graph is presented in the paper as a figure . In general, a graph or table is an appropriate representation of the data when more than 2 or 3 numbers are presented. Data that are presented in the form of a graph or table should be referred to but should not be repeated verbatim in the text as this defeats the purpose of a graph. More information on figures and  tables is presented later.

The Results section also reports comparable literature values for the properties obtained and/or calculated in the paper. Observation of trends in the numerical data is acceptable. However, interpretation of the trend should be saved for the Discussion section.

Remember, do not simply report your numerical results.  The Results section must have a narrative that describes your results.  This narrative can include a description of the data (such as spectra or data in graphs), what problems were encountered during data acquisition (and how they were resolved, or not) and a general description of how the raw data were processed to give the final results ( not a step-by-step description of everything you did).  The reader wants to know what you did, how you did it, what problems you encountered and finally what your results were.  Each of these topics must be addressed in the Results section in a way that is clear, yet concise.

This is the section where the results are interpreted. This section of the paper is analogous to a debate. You need to present your data, convince the reader of your data’s reliability and present evidence for your convictions. First, evaluate your data. Do you have good, mediocre, terrible, or un-interpretable data? Evaluate your results by comparing to literature values or other precedents. Explain what results should have been obtained and whether you obtained these expected values. Note that even if expected results were not obtained, you did not fail. Unexpected results are often the most interesting. Perhaps your hypothesis was not correct. Why is this? What new hypothesis do your data suggest? If you feel that your results are not reliable, you need to explain why. Use statistical analysis or chemical principles to support your claims. Was there a systematic error? Is the error due to the limitations of your apparatus? Does your data look the same to within a standard deviation? Evaluate the statistical significance of your data (click here to review the statistical treatment of data). After validating your data, you should interpret your results; state what you believe your results mean. How do your results help us understand the scientific problem? What do your results mean in the context of the bigger picture of chemistry, or of science? How do your results relate to the concepts outlined in the introduction? Do not assume that your experiment failed or was successful. You need to prove to the reader, with logical arguments and supporting evidence, the value of your study.

The conclusions that you wrote in your laboratory notebook are a good starting point from which to organize your thoughts.  Your paper’s discussion section is structured very similarly to the conclusions section in your notebook, and it might be good idea to review that now (click here to review the structure of the conclusions in the laboratory notebook).

Conclusions

The Conclusions section is typically a one-paragraph summary of your laboratory report. Here you summarize the goal(s) of your experiment, state whether you reached that goal, and describe briefly the implications of your study. Note that in some chemistry sub-disciplines it is acceptable to combine the Discussion and Conclusions sections. Consult your course syllabus or check with your instructor on the specific format to be used in your class.

Acknowledgements

The Acknowledgements section is where you thank anyone who helped you significantly with the project or with the manuscript. For instance, you would thank your laboratory partners if they’re not authors on the paper, anyone who helped with the design of the experiment or the preparation of the paper. You might also include funding sources such as a Truman State University summer scholarship or a National Institutes of Health grant.

Most of the ideas presented in your paper are probably not exclusively yours. Therefore, you should cite other people’s work wherever appropriate. However, you do not need to cite information that is common knowledge or is exclusively your idea. The References section is a compilation of all citations made within the paper. It is not a bibliography and therefore should not list sources that are not directly referred to in the text.

References Format

The format of references varies amongst journals. For your chemistry laboratory reports, you should follow, by default, the ACS guidelines as outlined in The ACS Style Guide and Journal of the American Chemical Society , JACS (all examples given in this handout conform to JACS format). If your professor requires you to conform to a specific journal’s format, look at articles from that journal or refer to the journal’s “Instructions to Authors.” The specifications for most ACS journals are:

Types of References

Articles . Journal articles are the primary source found in laboratory reports. An example is given below. Notice that the authors’ initials are given instead of the first and middle names. Also, there is no “and” before the last author’s name. Some journals require that the article’s title be included in the reference (check with your instructor to see if he/she wants you to use this style).  When included, the article’s title should start with a capital letter but the other words in the title, unless they are proper nouns, should not be capitalized (see below). The journal title is abbreviated (click here for a list of the ACS abbreviations for common journals). Also, the year and the comma after the year are in bold. Lastly, the reference has inclusive pagination (first and last pages are given)

The following are examples of the same journal article with the first given in style where the article’s title is included in the reference, while the second is in the style where the article’s title is omitted.

Books. Books should be cited in the following manner:

Computer Programs. Citations for computer programs vary. If a person in academia wrote the program, there is often a journal-article source. In other cases, the program is simply distributed by a company.

Websites. Journal articles are much preferred over websites. Websites are dynamic and are usually not peer reviewed. One of the only instances when a website is an acceptable reference is when it is referring to a database (however, an article is usually associated with the creation of the database). If you must use a website, the reference should include a title for the site, the author(s), year of last update and URL. It is unacceptable to use a website as a reference for scientific data or explanations of chemical processes.

Tables, Schemes and Figures

Tables, schemes and figures are all concise ways to convey your message.  As you prepare these items for your report, remember to think of your reader.  You want them to derive the maximum amount of information with the minimum amount of work. Pretend to be the reader and ask yourself, “Does this enhance my understanding?”, “Can I find everything?”, “Can I read it without being distracted?” Poorly prepared tables, schemes and figures will reflect badly on your science, and you as a scientist, so think carefully about these items as you prepare your report.

A table is a way to summarize data or ideas in a coherent, grid-like fashion. This is not simply output from a spreadsheet! You should prepare the table in a word-processor so that its formatting matches the rest of your report.  In general, tables have no more than ten rows and columns to avoid overwhelming the reader.  One common exception is in review articles (such as in Chemical Reviews ) where an author is attempting to summarize results from an entire field.  Another common exception is in the reporting of X-ray crystallography data.  These tables have their own special formatting rules, and will not be discussed here.

Tables are referred to in the text as “Table #”. Tables, schemes and figures are labeled separately, with Arabic numbers, in the order they are referred to in the paper. Tables have a table caption, which in some journals appears above the table, while in others it appears below.  In either case, the table caption is always on the same page as the table.

Don’t use lines or boxes in your table except where absolutely necessary. Use spaces between your columns instead (helpful hint: it is better to use your word processor’s table formatting tools than trying to get the columns to line up using tabs or spaces). All column or row headings should have clear subtitles and units if needed (usually in parentheses). Any numbers that are presented should have proper significant figures, and an indication of the error should be shown (click here to review how to report uncertainty in one’s data). An example table is given below.

A scheme is usually a sequence of two or more chemical reactions that together summarize a synthesis. A scheme may also show the steps in a purification with each step or reaction giving the reactants, products, catalysts, and yields.  A scheme that shows a chemical reaction may also show possible intermediates. Note that mechanisms are not usually conveyed using a scheme because they are more complicated and illustrate where electrons are proposed to move.  Mechanisms are most often placed in a figure.

It is a common convention in a scheme to write a bold number underneath chemical species referred to in the text.  Note that for the first occurrence of the bold number in the text, the chemical’s name is given, but after that only the bold number is used to identify it. This method of defining abbreviations for compounds can also be done in the experimental section, if there is no scheme.  This is very useful when a compound’s name is long or complicated.

The one-step yield is usually written to the right of the equation, although it is also proper to write the yield under the arrow.  Note also how the reaction conditions can be summarized (i. e., the first step below), which saves the reader from flipping to the experimental section for these details.

Each scheme also has a caption, which is included under the scheme.  The caption should briefly  summarize what is in the scheme.  If the scheme is from another source, the reference to this source should appear at the end of the caption.

The following is an example of a scheme that might appear in a synthetic paper.  The text below it shows how the scheme could be referred to in the body of the paper.  

Benzamide (1) was refluxed under aqueous acidic conditions for 1 hour to yield benzoic acid (2) . Acid (2) was then refluxed with SOCl 2 to yield benzoyl chloride (3) .

Sometimes a scheme may be used to illustrate a non-chemical process or how an instrument’s components are connected.  These could also be presented as figures, and there is no definitive rule that will tell you when to use a scheme and when to use a figure.  When in doubt, think of the reader and use the method that conveys the most information in the most easily understood format

Figures fall into two broad categories; those that are pictorial representations of concepts that are presented in the text, and those which summarize data. Again, it is critical to your report that your figures are clear, concise and readable, and that they support the arguments that you are making.  Remember that you must refer to and discuss every figure in the text!  If a figure is not mentioned, you don’t need it!

Figures that are pictorial representations of concepts usually appear in the Introduction , but it is also appropriate to include them in the Discussion . Use this type of figure to make your writing more concise (remember the conversion factor: 1 picture = 1 kword).  Remember, humans are very visually oriented and we can grasp complex concepts presented as picture more easily then when they are presented in words or as mathematical formulae.  Some examples of concept figures include:

Graphs are figures that present data.  You use a graph when you have more data than will fit in a table.  The general rules for preparing good figures for your notebook also apply in a laboratory report (click here to review graph preparation).  Formatting tips: do not use colored backgrounds or gridlines, and do not draw a box around the graph.

You may find it more concise to combine all your data into one graph. For example, it may be appropriate to put six lines with absorbance as a function of time, with varying concentrations of a reactant on the same graph rather than constructing six different graphs. However, when doing this, be careful not to over-clutter the graph.

Standard curves should not be included in this section unless that was the primary goal of the experiment. They should be put in the Supporting Information .

Figures have figure captions compiled in the Figure Legend section, located on a separate page at the end of the paper. Journals chose this format because of typographical issues, and it has been retained despite its inconvenience to the reader.  Each figure should appear on its own page in the order is it is discussed in the text. Figure captions appear in the Figure Legends section and do not appear on the same page as the figure. However, in the bottom, right-hand corner of the page the following identifying text appears:

Figure Legends

All figure legends (captions) should be found in the section entitled “Figure Legends”. The format for a figure legend is usually: “Figure number” (italics and bold), a short title (followed by a period) and then a description of what is in the figure. All figure legends are compiled on the same page separated by a blank line. Be sure to define in the caption any symbols used in the figure, and note whether lines that pass through data points are fits, or “guides to the eye”.

Supporting Information

This section (also known as Supplemental Material ) is where you can include information that may be helpful, but not essential, for evaluation of your data. Items in this section may include calibration curves, and spectra (from which you extracted only one absorbance value for your analysis).  Figures or tables of data whose contents were summarized in the text, or which were not critical to the conclusions, are also to be placed in the supporting information.  An example of this type of material is the table of atom positions generated in an X-ray crystal structure.

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Writing Reports and Research Papers: A Comparison

Writing reports and research papers are two of the most common forms of academic writing for students. However, these types of documents differ in purpose, structure and style. This article provides an overview of how to approach each type when composing a paper or report, highlighting their similarities as well as differences between them. In addition to outlining key points on structuring both reports and research papers according to accepted academic conventions, it also focuses on developing a meaningful understanding between the two genres that will help create coherent written documents with appropriate depth for different contexts. Furthermore, this analysis offers insight into ways one can combine elements from both styles in order to meet specific communicative needs effectively within any given project’s parameters.

I. Introduction

Ii. definition of a report and research paper, iii. similarities between reports and research papers, iv. differences between reports and research papers, v. structure of the two types of documents, vi. writing styles for reports and research papers, vii. conclusion.

As a form of academic writing, research papers and reports have their own distinctive features. Research papers focus on providing an analysis of the current literature in order to contribute new insight into existing knowledge. On the other hand, Reports are written for various purposes such as documenting investigation results or summarizing research findings from others.

• Research Paper : A research paper is typically longer than other forms of writing and contains evidence-based arguments backed up by reliable data sources. It should also include well-structured discussion sections based upon relevant theories that support your argument.
• Report : In contrast to a research paper, reports are generally shorter documents with less detailed content and limited theoretical discussion. They may be used for conveying information about specific phenomena related to business activities or experiments conducted during laboratory practice sessions.

What Are Reports and Research Papers? Reports and research papers are two distinct forms of written communication used in the academic realm. Although both can be utilized for providing information on a given subject, there are fundamental differences between the two that make them suitable for different purposes.

A report , typically structured in sections or chapters, is intended to present findings from an investigation into a specific issue. It may summarize data obtained through interviews or surveys, observations made at a certain event or location, results from laboratory experiments and much more. A report provides factual information about the topic under consideration and seeks to explain its significance without making judgements or recommendations.

Conversely, a research paper presents evidence gathered by an author during their own study of particular subject matter. Its purpose is not only to provide readers with data but also analyze it critically using various approaches such as comparison or argumentation; thereby forming conclusions about it which might suggest implications for future investigations. The content may originate partially (or wholly) from outside sources such as other works related to similar topics; however they must be appropriately referenced according too accepted standards like APA 6th Edition format .

Common Threads Reports and research papers have certain characteristics that tie them together. While reports are typically shorter than research papers, both include an introduction to the topic, a discussion of findings and ideas related to the topic, as well as a conclusion or summary section. Both documents also require thorough organization and use of sources for credibility purposes. In this way, they provide readers with an opportunity to learn more about their given subject in depth.

Distinct Characteristics However, there are still important differences between the two types of written work. Reports focus more on factual information while research papers delve deeper into analysis by synthesizing facts from multiple perspectives. Furthermore, reports usually involve fewer external sources than those used within academic writing like in a typical research paper assignment; instead relying heavily upon data collected internally such as through surveys or interviews conducted during the project process itself.

• Reports: fact-focused with few external sources.
• Research Papers: Analysis-driven using many outside sources.

In academic writing, reports and research papers have some distinct differences. Both types of documents require the same level of comprehensive evaluation; however, a report will present summaries in an organized fashion while a research paper is more analytical and requires further exploration.

• Writing Style : Reports use formal language to provide short overviews with objective accuracy. Research papers employ creative techniques that include critical analysis.
• Purpose : Reports offer factual information for decision-making purposes or to document existing conditions. Conversely, research papers address topics through evidence-based arguments.

Documents can come in many shapes and sizes. In the academic world, two of the most common types are research papers and reports. Both serve their purpose but have some distinct differences.

• A research paper is an analysis of a topic that includes thorough examination of evidence from various sources to make arguments.

Style Guide When writing a report or research paper, it is essential to keep in mind the style guide that you will be following. Depending on your field of study and area of interest, there are several possible style guides to follow, such as APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association). Be sure to familiarize yourself with whichever guide you will be using before beginning your project.

Research Paper vs Report It can often be difficult for students to understand the difference between a research paper and a report when both require similar levels of critical thinking skills. A research paper focuses more heavily on gathering evidence from different sources while drawing connections among various pieces of information gathered throughout the process; reports rely more heavily on facts already present without too much interpretation or analysis. Reports tend to take an objective stance when presenting data whereas papers may delve into deeper analysis regarding how certain phenomena interact with each other over time.

In summary, this project has highlighted the differences between research papers and reports. Research papers are longer, in-depth documents that involve academic research to uncover new knowledge or provide critical analysis of existing ideas. Reports are shorter summaries used to communicate information about a specific topic.

The two document types have different purposes but both require careful consideration when constructing them. When writing a research paper you must remain objective, while when creating a report it is acceptable to give your opinion as long as it is well supported with evidence from reliable sources. No matter what type of document you’re producing though, keep an eye on accuracy and clarity throughout.

English: The comparison between writing reports and research papers has been an ongoing discussion in academic circles for many years. This article provides a useful overview of the similarities and differences between these two types of writings, as well as considerations when deciding which approach to take. Ultimately, the best approach depends on the purpose of the document and the audience it will reach. Whether creating a report or research paper, understanding both approaches is essential to effective communication within academia.

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Writing a Scientific Paper

Writing a scientific paper is very similar to writing a lab report. The structure of each is primarily the same, but the purpose of each is different. Lab reports are meant to reflect understanding of the material and learn something new, while scientific papers are meant to contribute knowledge to a field of study.  A scientific paper is broken down into eight sections: title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and references. 

• Ex: "Determining the Free Chlorine Content of Pool Water"
• Abstracts are a summary of the research as a whole and should familiarize the reader with the purpose of the research. 
• Abstracts will always be written last, even though they are the first paragraph of a scientific paper. 
• Unlike a lab report, all scientific papers will have an abstract.
• Why was the research done?
• What problem is being addressed?
• What results were found?
• What are the meaning of the results?
• How is the problem better understood now than before, if at all?

Introduction

• The introduction of a scientific paper discusses the problem being studied and other theory that is relevant to understanding the findings. 
• The hypothesis of the experiment and the motivation for the research are stated in this section. 
• Write the introduction in your own words. Try not to copy from a lab manual or other guidelines. Instead, show comprehension of the research by briefly explaining the problem.

Methods and Materials

• Ex: pipette, graduated cylinder, 1.13mg of Na, 0.67mg Ag
• List the steps taken as they actually happened during the experiment, not as they were supposed to happen. 
• If written correctly, another researcher should be able to duplicate the experiment and get the same or very similar results. 
• In a scientific paper, most often the steps taken during the research are discussed more in length and with more detail than they are in lab reports. 
• The results show the data that was collected or found during the research. 
• Explain in words the data that was collected.
• Tables should be labeled numerically, as "Table 1", "Table 2", etc. Other figures should be labeled numerically as "Figure 1", "Figure 2", etc. 
• Calculations to understand the data can also be presented in the results. 
• The discussion section is one of the most important parts of a scientific paper. It analyzes the results of the research and is a discussion of the data. 
• If any results are unexpected, explain why they are unexpected and how they did or did not effect the data obtained. 
• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the design of the research and compare your results to similar research.
• If there are any experimental errors, analyze them.
• Explain your results and discuss them using relevant terms and theories.
• What do the results indicate?
• What is the significance of the results?
• Are there any gaps in knowledge?
• Are there any new questions that have been raised?
• The conclusion is a summation of the experiment. It should clearly and concisely state what was learned and its importance.
• If there is future work that needs to be done, it can be explained in the conclusion.
• When any outside sources to support a claim or explain background information, those sources must be cited in the references section of the lab report. 
• Scientific papers will always use outside references. 

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Writing a scientific paper.

• Writing a lab report
• INTRODUCTION

Writing a "good" results section

Figures and Captions in Lab Reports

"Results Checklist" from: How to Write a Good Scientific Paper. Chris A. Mack. SPIE. 2018.

Additional tips for results sections.

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This is the core of the paper. Don't start the results sections with methods you left out of the Materials and Methods section. You need to give an overall description of the experiments and present the data you found.

• Factual statements supported by evidence. Short and sweet without excess words
• Present representative data rather than endlessly repetitive data
• Discuss variables only if they had an effect (positive or negative)
• Use meaningful statistics
• Avoid redundancy. If it is in the tables or captions you may not need to repeat it

A short article by Dr. Brett Couch and Dr. Deena Wassenberg, Biology Program, University of Minnesota

• Present the results of the paper, in logical order, using tables and graphs as necessary.
• Explain the results and show how they help to answer the research questions posed in the Introduction. Evidence does not explain itself; the results must be presented and then explained. 
• Avoid: presenting results that are never discussed;  presenting results in chronological order rather than logical order; ignoring results that do not support the conclusions; 
• Number tables and figures separately beginning with 1 (i.e. Table 1, Table 2, Figure 1, etc.).
• Do not attempt to evaluate the results in this section. Report only what you found; hold all discussion of the significance of the results for the Discussion section.
• It is not necessary to describe every step of your statistical analyses. Scientists understand all about null hypotheses, rejection rules, and so forth and do not need to be reminded of them. Just say something like, "Honeybees did not use the flowers in proportion to their availability (X2 = 7.9, p<0.05, d.f.= 4, chi-square test)." Likewise, cite tables and figures without describing in detail how the data were manipulated. Explanations of this sort should appear in a legend or caption written on the same page as the figure or table.
• You must refer in the text to each figure or table you include in your paper.
• Tables generally should report summary-level data, such as means ± standard deviations, rather than all your raw data.  A long list of all your individual observations will mean much less than a few concise, easy-to-read tables or figures that bring out the main findings of your study.  
• Only use a figure (graph) when the data lend themselves to a good visual representation.  Avoid using figures that show too many variables or trends at once, because they can be hard to understand.

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• Lab Reports and Scientific Writing

Writing lab reports is different from writing research papers in the humanities, but it is not difficult. There are some main differences to keep in mind when writing a paper in the sciences:

• Science writing is meant to be factual and straightforward, and every claim needs to be fully supported. 
• Graphs and figures are an important means of expressing information, and are almost as important as the text itself.

FORMAT OF A TYPICAL LAB REPORT

In a lab report, these are the required sections, in order: Title Page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion, followed by a References page.  

• Title should be on its own page 
• Title should be informative
• Page should include full name and affiliation (e.g., your name on one line, then Kent State University at Stark on the next)
• Page should follow APA format, unless otherwise instructed
• Summary of your entire paper
• Should not be longer than 250 words
• Should contain a few sentences regarding the purpose of the experiment, methods, results, and discussion
• Should be on a separate page of its own

Introduction

• Contains 3 vital components: 1. Background information – Provides information that demonstrates why you are conducting the experiment and what has been previously found. This is where your citations will occur. 2. Statement of purpose – What is the purpose of the experiment? (Should be clear/concise and stand out.) 3. Hypothesis – Prediction about the results of the experiment. Should have clear justification; why did you make this prediction? You never “prove” a hypothesis in science; you only falsify or support it.
• Approximately 1.5 pages

Materials and Methods

• Should be written in a precise way so that the reader could potentially replicate your experiment 
• Written in a step-by-step fashion, but in paragraph form (do not list)
• Approximately ¾ of a page 
• Report your results rather than interpreting them
• Simply write your data in paragraph form
• Often contains at least one table and one figure 1. Table – Summarize your raw data. Title of the table should be above the table (ex. “Table 1. Title…”) 2. Figure – Data should be plotted on a graph. The figure should have a figure caption, which goes below the figure (ex. “Figure 1. Title…”). X and y axis should be labeled
• Interpret your data. Discuss any patterns you see and provide explanation for those patterns. If you provide a possible explanation for a pattern, you then have to provide a citation that supports it. If you have an idea of how a pattern might be explained, you must remain speculative, and be clear that it requires further research and investigation. State if your hypothesis was supported or not, provide a statement regarding how/what future investigation will add to this field of research
• Approximately 1 page

References 

Writing style.

• The writing needs to be concise and well supported. It should be technical and straightforward.
• One experiment cannot “prove” anything. Therefore, you must use phrases like “the data suggest…” to discuss your findings.
• Every claim needs to be heavily supported with valid references. These references should be cited in APA style (unless instructed otherwise).
• It may sometimes sound redundant when trying to speak clearly and completely. This is normal, but avoid excessive repetition and wordiness.

TABLES & GRAPHS

Tables should be used to present findings. These can be created in many programs, including Microsoft Word and Excel. For your table, you will need a specific title and at least two (2) clearly labeled columns, as shown below:

You may also want to utilize graphs within your report. For example, the above table contains data that were collected over time. Therefore, a line graph (which can be created in Microsoft Excel) is appropriate to show the relationship between the time and the growing number of bacteria. Again, you will need a detailed title and clearly labeled x and y axes. An example of such a graph is below:

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• Research paper

How to Write a Research Paper | A Beginner's Guide

A research paper is a piece of academic writing that provides analysis, interpretation, and argument based on in-depth independent research.

Research papers are similar to academic essays , but they are usually longer and more detailed assignments, designed to assess not only your writing skills but also your skills in scholarly research. Writing a research paper requires you to demonstrate a strong knowledge of your topic, engage with a variety of sources, and make an original contribution to the debate.

This step-by-step guide takes you through the entire writing process, from understanding your assignment to proofreading your final draft.

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Table of contents

Understand the assignment, choose a research paper topic, conduct preliminary research, develop a thesis statement, create a research paper outline, write a first draft of the research paper, write the introduction, write a compelling body of text, write the conclusion, the second draft, the revision process, research paper checklist, free lecture slides.

Completing a research paper successfully means accomplishing the specific tasks set out for you. Before you start, make sure you thoroughly understanding the assignment task sheet:

• Read it carefully, looking for anything confusing you might need to clarify with your professor.
• Identify the assignment goal, deadline, length specifications, formatting, and submission method.
• Make a bulleted list of the key points, then go back and cross completed items off as you’re writing.

Carefully consider your timeframe and word limit: be realistic, and plan enough time to research, write, and edit.

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There are many ways to generate an idea for a research paper, from brainstorming with pen and paper to talking it through with a fellow student or professor.

You can try free writing, which involves taking a broad topic and writing continuously for two or three minutes to identify absolutely anything relevant that could be interesting.

You can also gain inspiration from other research. The discussion or recommendations sections of research papers often include ideas for other specific topics that require further examination.

Once you have a broad subject area, narrow it down to choose a topic that interests you, m eets the criteria of your assignment, and i s possible to research. Aim for ideas that are both original and specific:

• A paper following the chronology of World War II would not be original or specific enough.
• A paper on the experience of Danish citizens living close to the German border during World War II would be specific and could be original enough.

Note any discussions that seem important to the topic, and try to find an issue that you can focus your paper around. Use a variety of sources , including journals, books, and reliable websites, to ensure you do not miss anything glaring.

Do not only verify the ideas you have in mind, but look for sources that contradict your point of view.

• Is there anything people seem to overlook in the sources you research?
• Are there any heated debates you can address?
• Do you have a unique take on your topic?
• Have there been some recent developments that build on the extant research?

In this stage, you might find it helpful to formulate some research questions to help guide you. To write research questions, try to finish the following sentence: “I want to know how/what/why…”

A thesis statement is a statement of your central argument — it establishes the purpose and position of your paper. If you started with a research question, the thesis statement should answer it. It should also show what evidence and reasoning you’ll use to support that answer.

The thesis statement should be concise, contentious, and coherent. That means it should briefly summarize your argument in a sentence or two, make a claim that requires further evidence or analysis, and make a coherent point that relates to every part of the paper.

You will probably revise and refine the thesis statement as you do more research, but it can serve as a guide throughout the writing process. Every paragraph should aim to support and develop this central claim.

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A research paper outline is essentially a list of the key topics, arguments, and evidence you want to include, divided into sections with headings so that you know roughly what the paper will look like before you start writing.

A structure outline can help make the writing process much more efficient, so it’s worth dedicating some time to create one.

Your first draft won’t be perfect — you can polish later on. Your priorities at this stage are as follows:

• Maintaining forward momentum — write now, perfect later.
• Paying attention to clear organization and logical ordering of paragraphs and sentences, which will help when you come to the second draft.
• Expressing your ideas as clearly as possible, so you know what you were trying to say when you come back to the text.

You do not need to start by writing the introduction. Begin where it feels most natural for you — some prefer to finish the most difficult sections first, while others choose to start with the easiest part. If you created an outline, use it as a map while you work.

Do not delete large sections of text. If you begin to dislike something you have written or find it doesn’t quite fit, move it to a different document, but don’t lose it completely — you never know if it might come in useful later.

Paragraph structure

Paragraphs are the basic building blocks of research papers. Each one should focus on a single claim or idea that helps to establish the overall argument or purpose of the paper.

Example paragraph

George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” has had an enduring impact on thought about the relationship between politics and language. This impact is particularly obvious in light of the various critical review articles that have recently referenced the essay. For example, consider Mark Falcoff’s 2009 article in The National Review Online, “The Perversion of Language; or, Orwell Revisited,” in which he analyzes several common words (“activist,” “civil-rights leader,” “diversity,” and more). Falcoff’s close analysis of the ambiguity built into political language intentionally mirrors Orwell’s own point-by-point analysis of the political language of his day. Even 63 years after its publication, Orwell’s essay is emulated by contemporary thinkers.

Citing sources

It’s also important to keep track of citations at this stage to avoid accidental plagiarism . Each time you use a source, make sure to take note of where the information came from.

You can use our free citation generators to automatically create citations and save your reference list as you go.

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The research paper introduction should address three questions: What, why, and how? After finishing the introduction, the reader should know what the paper is about, why it is worth reading, and how you’ll build your arguments.

What? Be specific about the topic of the paper, introduce the background, and define key terms or concepts.

Why? This is the most important, but also the most difficult, part of the introduction. Try to provide brief answers to the following questions: What new material or insight are you offering? What important issues does your essay help define or answer?

How? To let the reader know what to expect from the rest of the paper, the introduction should include a “map” of what will be discussed, briefly presenting the key elements of the paper in chronological order.

The major struggle faced by most writers is how to organize the information presented in the paper, which is one reason an outline is so useful. However, remember that the outline is only a guide and, when writing, you can be flexible with the order in which the information and arguments are presented.

One way to stay on track is to use your thesis statement and topic sentences . Check:

• topic sentences against the thesis statement;
• topic sentences against each other, for similarities and logical ordering;
• and each sentence against the topic sentence of that paragraph.

Be aware of paragraphs that seem to cover the same things. If two paragraphs discuss something similar, they must approach that topic in different ways. Aim to create smooth transitions between sentences, paragraphs, and sections.

The research paper conclusion is designed to help your reader out of the paper’s argument, giving them a sense of finality.

Trace the course of the paper, emphasizing how it all comes together to prove your thesis statement. Give the paper a sense of finality by making sure the reader understands how you’ve settled the issues raised in the introduction.

You might also discuss the more general consequences of the argument, outline what the paper offers to future students of the topic, and suggest any questions the paper’s argument raises but cannot or does not try to answer.

You should not :

• Offer new arguments or essential information
• Take up any more space than necessary
• Begin with stock phrases that signal you are ending the paper (e.g. “In conclusion”)

There are four main considerations when it comes to the second draft.

• Check how your vision of the paper lines up with the first draft and, more importantly, that your paper still answers the assignment.
• Identify any assumptions that might require (more substantial) justification, keeping your reader’s perspective foremost in mind. Remove these points if you cannot substantiate them further.
• Be open to rearranging your ideas. Check whether any sections feel out of place and whether your ideas could be better organized.
• If you find that old ideas do not fit as well as you anticipated, you should cut them out or condense them. You might also find that new and well-suited ideas occurred to you during the writing of the first draft — now is the time to make them part of the paper.

The goal during the revision and proofreading process is to ensure you have completed all the necessary tasks and that the paper is as well-articulated as possible. You can speed up the proofreading process by using the AI proofreader .

Global concerns

• Confirm that your paper completes every task specified in your assignment sheet.
• Check for logical organization and flow of paragraphs.
• Check paragraphs against the introduction and thesis statement.

Fine-grained details

Check the content of each paragraph, making sure that:

• each sentence helps support the topic sentence.
• no unnecessary or irrelevant information is present.
• all technical terms your audience might not know are identified.

Next, think about sentence structure , grammatical errors, and formatting . Check that you have correctly used transition words and phrases to show the connections between your ideas. Look for typos, cut unnecessary words, and check for consistency in aspects such as heading formatting and spellings .

Finally, you need to make sure your paper is correctly formatted according to the rules of the citation style you are using. For example, you might need to include an MLA heading  or create an APA title page .

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Checklist: Research paper

I have followed all instructions in the assignment sheet.

My introduction presents my topic in an engaging way and provides necessary background information.

My introduction presents a clear, focused research problem and/or thesis statement .

My paper is logically organized using paragraphs and (if relevant) section headings .

Each paragraph is clearly focused on one central idea, expressed in a clear topic sentence .

Each paragraph is relevant to my research problem or thesis statement.

I have used appropriate transitions  to clarify the connections between sections, paragraphs, and sentences.

My conclusion provides a concise answer to the research question or emphasizes how the thesis has been supported.

My conclusion shows how my research has contributed to knowledge or understanding of my topic.

My conclusion does not present any new points or information essential to my argument.

I have provided an in-text citation every time I refer to ideas or information from a source.

I have included a reference list at the end of my paper, consistently formatted according to a specific citation style .

I have thoroughly revised my paper and addressed any feedback from my professor or supervisor.

I have followed all formatting guidelines (page numbers, headers, spacing, etc.).

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The discussion section contains the results and outcomes of a study. An effective discussion informs readers what can be learned from your experiment and provides context for the results.

What makes an effective discussion?

When you’re ready to write your discussion, you’ve already introduced the purpose of your study and provided an in-depth description of the methodology. The discussion informs readers about the larger implications of your study based on the results. Highlighting these implications while not overstating the findings can be challenging, especially when you’re submitting to a journal that selects articles based on novelty or potential impact. Regardless of what journal you are submitting to, the discussion section always serves the same purpose: concluding what your study results actually mean.

A successful discussion section puts your findings in context. It should include:

• the results of your research,
• a discussion of related research, and
• a comparison between your results and initial hypothesis.

Tip: Not all journals share the same naming conventions.

You can apply the advice in this article to the conclusion, results or discussion sections of your manuscript.

Our Early Career Researcher community tells us that the conclusion is often considered the most difficult aspect of a manuscript to write. To help, this guide provides questions to ask yourself, a basic structure to model your discussion off of and examples from published manuscripts. 

Questions to ask yourself:

• Was my hypothesis correct?
• If my hypothesis is partially correct or entirely different, what can be learned from the results? 
• How do the conclusions reshape or add onto the existing knowledge in the field? What does previous research say about the topic? 
• Why are the results important or relevant to your audience? Do they add further evidence to a scientific consensus or disprove prior studies? 
• How can future research build on these observations? What are the key experiments that must be done? 
• What is the “take-home” message you want your reader to leave with?

How to structure a discussion

Trying to fit a complete discussion into a single paragraph can add unnecessary stress to the writing process. If possible, you’ll want to give yourself two or three paragraphs to give the reader a comprehensive understanding of your study as a whole. Here’s one way to structure an effective discussion:

Writing Tips

While the above sections can help you brainstorm and structure your discussion, there are many common mistakes that writers revert to when having difficulties with their paper. Writing a discussion can be a delicate balance between summarizing your results, providing proper context for your research and avoiding introducing new information. Remember that your paper should be both confident and honest about the results! 

• Read the journal’s guidelines on the discussion and conclusion sections. If possible, learn about the guidelines before writing the discussion to ensure you’re writing to meet their expectations. 
• Begin with a clear statement of the principal findings. This will reinforce the main take-away for the reader and set up the rest of the discussion. 
• Explain why the outcomes of your study are important to the reader. Discuss the implications of your findings realistically based on previous literature, highlighting both the strengths and limitations of the research. 
• State whether the results prove or disprove your hypothesis. If your hypothesis was disproved, what might be the reasons? 
• Introduce new or expanded ways to think about the research question. Indicate what next steps can be taken to further pursue any unresolved questions. 
• If dealing with a contemporary or ongoing problem, such as climate change, discuss possible consequences if the problem is avoided. 
• Be concise. Adding unnecessary detail can distract from the main findings. 

Don’t

• Rewrite your abstract. Statements with “we investigated” or “we studied” generally do not belong in the discussion. 
• Include new arguments or evidence not previously discussed. Necessary information and evidence should be introduced in the main body of the paper. 
• Apologize. Even if your research contains significant limitations, don’t undermine your authority by including statements that doubt your methodology or execution. 
• Shy away from speaking on limitations or negative results. Including limitations and negative results will give readers a complete understanding of the presented research. Potential limitations include sources of potential bias, threats to internal or external validity, barriers to implementing an intervention and other issues inherent to the study design. 
• Overstate the importance of your findings. Making grand statements about how a study will fully resolve large questions can lead readers to doubt the success of the research. 

Snippets of Effective Discussions:

Consumer-based actions to reduce plastic pollution in rivers: A multi-criteria decision analysis approach

Identifying reliable indicators of fitness in polar bears

• How to Write a Great Title
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4: Formal Lab Reports

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• Page ID 126805

• Ginger Shultz
• University of Michigan

General Information

• At the top of the report write your name, the experiment number and title, your lab section, and the names of any group members (if it was a group experiment).
• Proofread your report before turning it in. Vocabulary used in chemical laboratory reports is rarely included in spell check programs so pay particular attention to spelling.
• Double-space (or 1.5 space)
• Do not use first person tense, i.e. do not use "I".
• Write objectively, without adding personal qualifications to your analysis. Statements like "the experiment went pretty well" are not appropriate. Negative writing is not objective and should not be used. I.e. avoid making excuses for your data, rather report it as is.

The lab report should be broken into the following sections:

1. introduction.

• Should be 1-2 paragraphs in length.
• The introduction should be the T.V. guide version of the experiment. It should concisely explain to the reader what the purpose/goal of the experiment is, what general concepts are being covered, and mention any relevant laboratory techniques which are being used.
• Any good introduction, whether it be in science or fiction writing, uses a "hook". That is some bit of information or sentence that makes the reader want to keep reading. In your report this could be an interesting piece of background information.

2. Reaction Scheme

• The simple reaction scheme should include starting materials, any reagents and solvents over the reaction arrow and products.
• A reaction scheme is different from a reaction mechanism. It is a summary of the reaction, whereas a mechanism shows step-by-step what is happening using curved arrow notation.
• Use the Chemdraw chemistry drawing program for all structures in your report.

3. Experimental

• Should be written in past tense and be about 1 paragraph long (for each distinct reaction).
• Should be written in paragraph form. Do not use bulleted lists and do not include the reagents table from your lab notebook pages.
• Use proper abbreviations for amounts like grams (g), milligrams (mg), millimoles ( mmol) and millileters (mL). Note there is a space between the number and the unit.
• Use the degree symbol when reporting temperatures. A space is used between the number and the degrees sign, but not between the degrees sign and the "C". I.e. 70 ºC .
• All decimal number should have a leading zero before the decimal place (0.5 rather than .5). This is true for tables and calculations in your lab notebook as well.
• Use superscripts and subscripts appropriately.
• Do not use too many details in your experimental section. Things that would be common knowledge for the experimenter, like using a thermometer to make temperature readings, can be left out. Things like extractions are done by chemists every day so details like what layer was aqueous vs. organic are not necessary. A simple sentence such as "the product was extracted from acidic aqueous solution into diethyl ether" is sufficient.
• When giving TLC developing solvents, give them in ratios like 1:1 or 3:2, the actual volume is unimportant.
• The following is an example of an experimental section:

Ethyl 4-methoxycinnamate : 4-methoxycinnamic acid (0.60 g, 3.36 mmol) was dissolved in dry N,N-dimethylformamide (10 mL) in a 25 mL round-bottomed flask. Cesium carbonate (1.65 g, 5.06 mmol) followed by iodoethane (1.0 mL, 12.5 mmol) were added. The flask was vigorously stirred and slightly heated at 50 ºC for 1 hour. The product was cooled to room temperature and extracted with a 3:1 solution of hexanes:ethyl acetate. The organic layer was washed with brine, dried with MgSO 4 , and solvent removed by rotary evaporation. The crude product was recrystallized with 95% ethanol to yield a white solid (0.41 g, 2.30 mmol, 68% yield). 1 H NMR (100 MHz, CDCl 3 ) δ7.66 (d, 1H, 3 J = 16.0 Hz), 7.49 (d, 2H, 3 J = 8.8 Hz), 6.91 (d, 2H, 3 J = 8.8 Hz) 6.31 (d, 1H, 3 J = 16.0 Hz), 4.26 (q, 2H, 3 J = 7.2 Hz), 3.84 (s, 3H), 1.35 (t, 3H, 3 J=7.2 Hz). IR (solid KBr, cm -1 ) ν 3406, 2959, 2933, 2874, 1711, 1636, 1605.

Reporting spectral data: in NMR the first character in paranthesis refers to the splitting (i.e. d = doublet, t = triplet etc.), the second character refers to the integration (.e. 2H means this signal corresponds to 2 hydrogents in the compound), and the final character refers to the coupling constant. If the coupling constant is note determined it need not be reported here. For IR spectroscopy you need only list those peaks which fall into the functional group region (i.e. 4000-1500 cm -1 ) unless a peak in the fingerprint region can be easily identified and is useful in identifying the structure.

4. Results and Discussion

• THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SECTION IN THE REPORT
• An effective discussion should uniquely define your experiment while also demonstrating your abiility to select the appropriate data to include, to discuss your understanding of the results in the context of the overall experiment, and to think critically and write logically.
• Should be written in past tense and be 1-2 pages in length.
• Critically discuss your data. The majority of points in this section will be given based on your ability to write logically and to interpret your data appropriately. Talk about any data you were able to collect even if if it is just a TLC plate. If you were unable to obtain data like an IR spectrum, do not go into detail as to why it was unobtainable. A simple statement about poor yielding reaction or time constraints is sufficient. Instead, discuss what you would have expected to see if one were taken.
• Whenever possible you should look up the IR and/or NMR spectra for your starting material and product. These literature spectra should be used in discussion to confirm that the product was made or in identifying an unknown compound (experiments 1, 2 and 5).
• If you attach an IR spectrum, it should be labeled, referenced, and discussed in the report. Simply giving results without discussing, explaining, analyzing them is not sufficient.

5. Conclusion

• Should be written in present or past tense and be 1 paragraph in length.
• Highlight the important results. I.e. was the desired product was obtained and in good purity? if not, explain why.
• How might the experiment be improved if you could do it again?

6. References

• Any outside information that is used in the report should be appropriately cited and arranged in a bibliography at the end of the report.
• Citations and bibliography should be formatted consistently.
• Journals are abbreviated:
• Last name, first initial.; last name, first intitial. Journal . Year , volume , pages.

i.e. Deno, N. C.; Richey, H.G.; Liu, J.S.; Lincoln, D.N.; Turner, J.O. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1965 , 87 , 4533-4538.

• J. Am. Chem. Soc. – Journal of the American Chemical Society
• J. Phys. Chem. – Journal of Physical Chemistry
• J. Phys. Chem. A – Journal of Physical Chemistry (A, B, or C)
• J. Org. Chem. – Journal of Organic Chemistry
• Org. Lett. – Organic Letters
• Phys. Rev. Lett. – Physical Review Letters
• Tetrahedron – Tetrahedron
• Tetrahedron Lett. – Tetrahedron Letters
• Acc. Chem. Res. – Accounts of Chemical Research
• Author, if available. Title of page as listed on site. Address of page (date accessed).

i.e. SDBS: IR (Liquid Film), benzene. http://riodb01.ibase.aist.go.jp/sdbs/cgi-bin/direct_frame_top.cgi (accessed Apr 2008).

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Difference Between Research Paper and Research Report

Research Paper Definition

The research paper is, in fact, the complete & careful exploration of some specific topic or issue and reaching the results by interpreting the facts. In the research paper , the author writes about all the realistic implications of the research and its uses in the real scenario.

Research Report Definition

The research report is, in fact, a totally different piece of document that encloses the information regarding your research that what kind of investigation has been conducted in your research paper and for what purpose & in which circumstances you have conducted that research.

Research Paper and Research Report Comparison

Major Differences Between the Research Paper and Research Report

• By reading the definition only, it is easily recognized able fact that research paper represents the whole research process; on the other hand research report actually represents the concise overview and description about the complete research paper .
• Besides the definition of both, the main difference between a research paper and research report can be easily recognized only by having an overview of its complete format . Research paper encloses more chapters than the research report as a complete document. A fine research paper starts with a general introduction of the topic, and then includes a literature review of the other researchers regarding the same topic, a methodology that how you are going to do that research, results, and interpretation of the figures presented in the results. Most effective and thorough researches also narrate the importance of the research, implications and also the shortfalls of your research as well. Contrary to it, the research report cannot explain too much data about the research. Its main purpose is to enclose the course of action, results, and significance of the specific research papers which is to be discussed.
• From the above point discussed, it becomes obvious that research paper is a lengthy document because it encloses more chapters than that of the research report. Contrary to it the research report is the summarised overview of the important points of a specific research paper.
• Research paper in its literature section reviews the ideas and analysis of other researchers who already have done work on the same topic but may be in the different scenario. On the other hand, research report cannot discuss the research or investigations of other researchers but it only explains the procedure, conclusion, and importance of a specific research paper.
• The research paper can present the citations and quotations from other author’s papers along with their references or it can also narrate the ideas presented in books or movies about that topic or research in order to support your own research. However, the research report cannot narrate any kind of supportive material but only about the specifications and findings of your research work.
• Research paper and research report both are different from each other because the main purpose of both documents varies from each other. The main purpose of the research paper is to convince the readers that variables discussed in the specific research have some sort of relationship with each other and to persuade effectively writer have to quote previous researches with the same kind of experimentation or research done. On the other hand, the purpose of the research report is to provide information only. The research report provides the summarise information about the research being done; it can never be used to convince about any argument.
• Another distinction between both of them is that research paper will be based on a question or a query. Main focus of the author of the research paper will be to address the query which is stated as question or ambiguity in the start of the research paper. All efforts of the author will be inclined to provide the logic to the given or anticipated relation between two or more variables. On the other hand, the research report can never address any question or query. It is developed just to recap the important details of the targeted research paper.
• Moreover, the research report is focused to scrutinize and infer from given information. It involves arguments & logics along with gathering data. In contrast to it, the research report doesn’t need to involve any argument, analysis or interpretation of the results.
• Last but not the least research paper is a document that will be helpful in bringing distinctive and unique knowledge at the end of the research. Because research done in it is necessary to be conducted in different scenario or experimentation with a new combination of variables but research report is never inclined to do the same, It can never bring any new idea or knowledge in any case.

Also Study: 800+ Research Paper Examples

Characteristics of a Good Research Paper and Research Report

It has become very clear from all the above discussion that research paper and research report, both are a very different document from each other. But another fact is that there are some qualities and characteristics that may be common in both and all these qualities must be there in both documents to make them meaningful and worthy for reading.

• All the information given in the script should be based on facts only. No information should be imaginary or doubtful in any manner. Moreover, the information provided quotations or any research done by other researchers being quoted in the research paper should be provided with proofs and proper references.
• Language used for writing both types of documents must be clear and easy to understand. Use of jargons is strictly prohibited. Moreover, technical words must be used if necessary because more use of technical words will make it difficult for the reader to maintain attention in reading the whole paper. Easy and clear wording will make it more reader-friendly and understandable.
• It is also very necessary that document developed must be free of errors and there must be no duplication of any information in a single document. Duplication of information will directly lead to the decline in the interest of the reader & he will stop reading that document. Moreover, errors and doubtful information will decline the worth of the paper as well as the writer.
• The format of the research should be well prepared and its structure must be according to requirements. Otherwise, the document will lose its authenticity in the real sense.
• The manuscript developed, whether the research paper or research report must be oriented towards the result. Procedure, survey, and methodology every step should be inclined towards factual and clear results. If the results are ambiguous until the end, the whole effort of writing the document will be devastated. Moreover, each and every line is written should maintain an ethical reporting style in itself.

These qualities must be there in both documents in order to maintain the quality of the work and enhance the understanding of the manuscript for the readers. Any document, whether Research paper or research report must have these qualities, to attract the attention of the reader and make them read & understand the complete manuscript till the end.

Importance of understanding the differences between the research paper and Research Report

It is really necessary to understand the differences between the research paper and research report both. Because commonly these terms may be confused if asked generally but both types of documents have very different formats and designed to serve very different purposes. As research paper is a complete document in which each and every step of exploring a specific issue is documented along with guidance & support from the previous researches which are properly cited and referenced. On the other hand, the research report doesn’t have any concern with other researches, but it is restricted to give a concise summary of a specific research only. No other previous research is being discussed in the research report. So understanding and learning about the differences and characteristics of a good research paper and a research report will really contribute to add in the worth of the research.

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