Note: These are meant to be guidelines, and may not completely align with your teacher's expectations. Follow instructions from your teacher regarding specific lab report formatting and requirements.
Embedded Files
Cover Page Must include your name, experiment/laboratory title, partners’ names, instructor, date of report, and graphic or picture relevant to experiment (optional).
Abstract This section provides a very brief look at your lab and its results. Briefly summarize the purpose of your experiment and your results. Do not provide any explanation for your procedures or results.
Introduction/Background This section will include two paragraphs. In the first paragraph, you will include background information about the topics (and related material) used in the experiment. You are to complete some type of research to find this information. Please use your research to construct at least eight sentences describing your topic(s). In addition, the information should help explain your results in the Conclusion paragraph; thus, don’t just pick random information about your topic(s). In the second paragraph, you are to include your hypothesis, independent and dependent variables, and a description of your control group.
Procedure A narrative description (paragraph form) of the steps you took to set up, conduct the experiment and clean up. You should use past tense to describe your procedure It should be specific – “we added 10.3 mL of water to the 5.2 grams of sodium chloride.” It should not be a numbered list or a bulleted list. It should not be a rewriting of the original laboratory handout.
Data Table that reflects the raw data that you collected in lab. Be certain to provide all of the proper parts to a data table.
Graphs and Calculations This section should all graphs. Graphs should only be constructed on Microsoft Excel or any other graphing software. In addition, if you had to complete any type of calculation (sums, averages, differences, etc.), you must provide a sample of your work indicating how you completed the calculation.
Questions & Answers If there are associated questions in the laboratory handout, the answers to these questions should be included at this point. This section may not always be used. Please be certain to answer all questions in complete sentences.
Discussion
1) Conclusion paragraph. In this paragraph, describe the results for all of the experimental groups, provide data for all of the groups, and provide an explanation as to why the results occurred. In addition, address whether or not your data supports your hypothesis.
2) Errors paragraph. In this paragraph, describe two errors (or possible errors) that your group made during the experiment. Then, specifically describe how these errors affected your results.
3) Improvement paragraph. This paragraph should state appropriate suggestions for conducting the experiment with greater accuracy and precision in the future. How would you improve it or make it better? (This is not personal i.e. "I will learn to read the graduated cylinder more accurately" but things related to the experiment itself. Different equipment or better layout, added features…). Please make at least two suggestions. Don't mention that you will correct the errors from the above paragraph. Your improvements should not be the same as your corrections to your errors. In addition, with each improvement, describe how it will improve the lab.
Works Cited/Bibliography—Use MLA format for all sources (including pictures) unless otherwise stated by your teacher.
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