Transcript Formal Lab Reports - HRSBSTAFF Home Page

Formal Lab Reports
• Prince Andrew High
School
Title Page
• At the bottom right corner of the title page, include:
Title
Presented to
Teacher’s name
By
Student’s name
Partner
Student’s name
Date
Class
PAHS
Purpose
• This section tells the reader the
objective of the lab activity.
Ex: To determine the concentration of
an unknown hydrochloric acid solution.
Note:
Do not include part of procedure
in the purpose section.
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is an educated guess based
on previous knowledge of the concept
explored in the lab activity.
Note that it is not always possible to
write a hypothesis. The teacher can let
you know when it is appropriate to do so.
Introduction
An introduction is a presentation of the theory covered during
the lab activity. This section should help the reader get a
better appreciation of the knowledge presented during the lab.
It requires a certain amount of research and should be properly
referenced.
All mathematical formulas to be used in the lab analysis should
be presented in this section with a thorough explanation of the
variables involved.
It is important to refrain from presenting procedure within this
section.
Materials
Since a lab sheet must be attached to
the lab report, in this section it is only
necessary to state:
As per lab sheet
If changes were made to the procedure
during the lab and therefore a change in
the materials’ list happened, these
would need to be stated in this section.
Procedure
Since a lab sheet must be attached to
the lab report, in this section it is only
necessary to state:
As per lab sheet
If changes were made to the procedure
during the lab, these would need to be
stated in this section.
Results
Results from an experiment should always be
presented in a data table format.
Data tables should have proper headings and
units indicated.
Qualitative observations should always
accompany Quantitative data. They can be
added in a separate section under the data
table.
Analysis
An analysis consists of making sense of the data
collected.
In this section, you must include all mathematical
work as well as graphing when appropriate.
All work must be shown with proper units and
significant digits.
Proper graphing techniques must also be followed.
Percent error should be calculated in this section.
Conclusion
A conclusion consists of four very important parts.
In the first part, the student must show that the
purpose has been met. This is usually done by stating
for example:
“In this lab, we found the concentration of the
hydrochloric acid solution to be _____ WITH A
PERCENT ERROR OF ____.”
The accepted value used to calculate % error should
be properly referenced. Any researched physical or
mathematical value used to comment on the validity
of the results have to be properly referenced at all
times.
Conclusion (cont)
Evaluation
In this section of the conclusion, you must evaluate
what possible errors could have contributed to the
lack of success of your experiment or the lack of
correlation between your obtained values and the
referenced values.
Separate your errors into systematic and random
errors. Comment on the impact or significance of
these errors on the results obtained in the lab.
Conclusion (cont)
Modifications
In the final section of the conclusion, you are
asked to propose modifications to the lab
which would improve the errors identified in
the second section. Make sure to propose
modifications which will directly improve the
lab performance and make sure to address
everyone of the errors stated in your
evaluation section.
References
Please follow APA style for your
reference section.
Resource materials are available to you
if you need help in this section.
Additional Questions
For certain laboratory activities, it is
possible that the teacher will supply you
with additional questions which will test
your understanding of the materials
studied during the lab activity. Make
sure to answer these questions using
complete sentences.