Typical sections in an experimental record

As experiments can vary significantly in their aim, discipline and context, there are no specific rules about what sections should and shouldn’t be included. There are, however, some typical sections that you would typically find in most lab books, and these provide a good framework to adopt when starting to learn how to structure an experimental record.

The aim: Every planned activity that occurs in a laboratory should be happening to achieve a goal. As knowing the aim is important for a reader of your lab book, be it another person or yourself looking back having forgotten the details of what you did, it is usually the first thing to appear in an experimental record. The aim may take the form of proving a hypothesis, discussed in the section on Designing experiments. If this is the case, it should be stated clearly that this is the purpose of the experiment. Objectives for the experiment, if there are any, may also be included in the first section of a lab report (the difference between an aim and an objective is also in the section on Designing experiments).

Procedure: The way you execute an experiment is important to note, as this will have an influence on the results. It is therefore important to write your procedure in any experimental record. This could include methods you follow, protocols you adhere to and equipment you use. More details are about how to record what you did during an experiment is given in the next section.

Data: Recording what you measure, be it qualitative or quantitative, is, arguably, the most important part of an experimental record, because it is the reason why are doing the experiment. For this reason, recording what you found out is discussed in the section Recording what you found out.

Initial findings and analysis: Once you have measured some data from your experiment, you can interpret what you think it means directly after the experiment has been completed. This could involve doing come calculations to process raw data or compare to your hypothesis to make the data into a meaningful result. Comments can be made and preliminary conclusions drawn. You should note this analysis in your experimental record, making sure to clearly indicated that what you are recording is no longer raw data from measurement but your interpretation.

You may be drawing initial findings because it is part of the work you have been tasked to do, by a member of University staff if the lab is part of a degree programme or by a supervisor if it is part of your work. At University, this may include answering some laboratory questions to ensure you have understood and appreciated the experiment. You may be obtaining initial findings as part of your experimental design. It might be that you want to check that there are no anomalies in the data worth double checking before you leave the laboratory or it might be that the initial results show an interesting phenomena worthy of further investigation.

Further work or improvements: Suggestions for what should happen next or how the experiment could have been improved may be worth noting for the case where the experiment will be repeated or expanded upon in the future, by yourself or others.