Laboratory Reports
See for Example: [1] "Experiments in Physical Chemistry", D. P. Shoemaker, C. W. Garland, J.
I. Steinfeld, McGraw Hill, 1974.
1) Laboratory reports are your report of results from your experiment. Plagiarism is not allowed
in any form. These forms include:
a) Copying data from others.
b) Copying text from old reports or reports of other students in your class.
c) Paraphrasing text without a reference.
d) Copying text from a book etc. without a reference and quotation marks.
You should present your own results as best you can. If you have a problem with technical
writing this is the time to work it out. The reports will be graded with each student's level of
competence in technical writing in mind, that is, there is no advantage to plagiarize and it has the
disadvantage that you don't learn to write and you risk a 0 on the report.
2) The report should contain a copy of the relevant sections of your lab notebook as an appendix.
These can be referenced in the report, "The lab fell apart when the fire alarm sounded (see
appendix 2, Joe's notebook 1/15/97 pp. 22)."
3) Reports should be typed or written legibly in ink. When writing a report you should consider it
as an example of the type of work you would do for a job, i.e. is it prepared well enough to give to
a "boss"? Keep in mind time constraints and limitations of the equipment.
4) Figures, Tables need captions and numbers in sequential order. Equations need numbers to
reference them. Equations are usually typed on a separate line with a reference number. A figure
or table needs to be mentioned in the text before it appears on the page. (This rule can be softened
to referencing in the text of the same or a previous page of the report.)
5) Sections of the report:
a) Title, Date of Submission, Author, Lab Partners
b) Abstract: 1 to 5 sentences that summarize why you did what you did, what was
done, what happened and why it might be important. In a company setting the...