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Report Format
How to write up the exciting results from your polymer lab experiments!
The best way to learn how to write up a lab is by doing it: over and over again until you get it right. This format discussion will help get you started, but after you get back a corrected lab, read suggestions for changes carefully and implement them in your next report.
Learn from your mistakes, don't repeat them! What to do when for the lab
- Pre-lab preparation
- read the material assigned and take the prelab quiz (print it!)
- write up a concise step-by-step outline of what you will do in your blue "data book:" this makes you organize so you can be safe and efficient in the lab, and so you know what you are doing when you are doing it.
- In-lab activities
- listen and watch the skills demonstration by the TA; make notes
- write down all weights (tare, total, net), volumes, measurements and in-lab calculations directly in your data book (not on loose paper that can get lost: you need a permanent record)
- write down all observations you make: what actually happened?
- write down all questions you (or others) asked plus answers
- before you leave (and forget), write down a quick summary of how things went, what happened, and why
- Post-lab activites
- collect any data from others or from literature you might need
- do calculations, spectral work-ups, plotting, chemical drawing and molecular modeling, whatever and organize this information
- write up the lab: use a computer to write it: import data, plots, structures, tables from files directly into your report
- attach prelab quiz and anything else required; hand it in on time
To actually write up the report, use the following headings. Understand what each includes and why. This is the easy part (format), don't screw it up!
- Introduction
- summarize concisely what the context of the experiment is: "Nylons are made by step-growth and ring-opening .... I will do both...to make nylon 6, nylon 12 and copolymers...
- give the goal and objectives: The overall goal of this technique is, eg, to evaluate Tg vs copolymer composition in lactam copolymers; objectives include learning the following skills and methods to achieve this goal
- Experimental
- reference what you based your experiment on
- give a detailed account of what you did different: exactly which monomers, conditions, done how, worked up how...
- record in table form or concise summaries all weighings, etc.
- Observations
- what actually happened: did you get or do what you expected?
- what happened to affect you results: was the bath too cold, the monomer yellow (impure?), the NaH unreactive (did you test?)
- what did the product look and behave like?
- did the measurement or analysis look right?
- Results and Discussion
- summarize succinctly what you did and what happened
- discuss how and why it happened: hypothesize, extrapolate
- explain mistakes, incorrect method implementation...
- rationalize your results: negative viscosity obtained because the viscometer was not all the way in the bath on first two runs...
- Conclusions
- this is not a summary of what you did
- conclude something: not "I really liked this lab and learned a lot..." but rather "the accuracy and precision of dilute solution viscosity determinations of unknown polymer molecular weights is low and unreliable for water soluble polyoxyethylenes..."
- References
- include lab book procedures, the Macrogalleria, Macrolab stuff
- add references you found (by yourself??) that helped support or explain what you found/observed/concluded
- use Macromolecules format for references
- Attach prelab quiz and anything else needed at the end
Take a look at a couple of lab reports from previous years: Here's one. Here's another.
Your lab grade will be determined mostly by your lab report: do it right! (Check the Grading Policy to find out how these reports will be scored.) But you can only do it right if you prepare, pay attention, work safely and efficiently, and cooperate: we will be grading these things also:
Big Brother is watching! Writing is the only way the rest of us know who you are and what you can do. You must write well to succeed in your profession!