Lab Report Format
All lab reports will be submitted through a DropBox and will be checked for plagiarism by Turnitin.com. Use the headings below in your lab report. Each report only has one of each section; combine all experiments into each section. Don’t make a separate Procedure or Results section for each experiment. See the Sample Lab Report at the bottom of the page for an example.
Purpose
In the purpose section, state which principles you will be testing how you will test each principle.
Good Example – “I will be testing different foods to determine if they contain carbohydrates and lipids using chemical testing agents.”
Bad Example – “I will be testing things to see what they are made out of.”
Hypothesis
The hypothesis must state the expected outcome of each experiment. Remember your hypothesis is what you expect to happen to the dependent variable. You may have more than one hypothesis if you ran more than one experiment. In this example experiment, you are testing different foods (independent variable) for carbohydrates by observing which turn black (dependent variable) using iodine. Testing for lipids using Sudan IV would need a different hypothesis!
Good Example – “Iodine will turn the onion, potato, and vegetable oil black.”
Bad Example – “Potatoes have complex carbohydrates in them.”
Procedure
Do not list what you used. Explain what you did and name the key equipment or chemicals you used in paragraph form. Be sure to record the location and date of the experiment. Your description should be complete enough to allow another person to repeat the experiment exactly based on what your wrote.
Identify the independent, dependent, and control variables in the experiment.
Do not include data in this section.
Good Example – “Iodine was added to peas, corn, and carrots to see which of them contained complex carbohydrates.”
Bad Example – “I put different chemicals on each food to see what they were made of.”
Results
You must have paragraphs describing the data in your tables and graphs. Each table or graph should have a unique descriptive title. Such as: Table 1: List of foods tested, chemicals used and color change response. In addition, you must write up all of your results in words. For example: “As seen in Table 1, the starch and sugar water both turned black in the iodine test.”
Include at least one picture of the experiment in this section. The picture should have a card showing your name included in the picture. There should be a MAXIMUM of 2 pictures in any lab report.
Discussion
Restate your hypothesis and determine whether it was supported or rejected by the data you collected.
If your hypothesis was supported, is this information novel or did science already know this? Discuss, what is known about the topic. Be sure to use references if you are stating facts that are not common knowledge. You MUST have at least two citations and references in your lab report!
If your hypothesis was incorrect, explain what you were thinking when you made the hypothesis and what you know now.
If you had trouble with your experiment or got unexpected results, identify any likely sources of error.
Think of at least one extra experiment you could do or type of data you could gather to improve the experiment further.
