Writing an Effective Formal Lab Report-v

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Biology

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Apr 29, 2024

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BIOL-2610L-D01 February 18, 2022 Writing an Effective Formal Lab Report Purpose of writing an effective lab report Writing a lab report is important because when information is collected, or we encounter new information it is essential to both understand and communicate our findings. Producing new knowledge is one of the main objectives of scientific research and scientists normally share this new knowledge using scientific reports of primary research which are lab reports. The lab reports are an illustration of argumentative writing in which the student’s goal is to convince the readers of the rationality of their findings and an overlook of the importance of their work. Practicing wiring a good lab report is a skill that needs continuous practice to achieve. An effective lab report will consist of adequately understanding concepts that have been investigated, detailed observation and documentation during the conduction of the experiment, and the capability to explain the design of the experiment, the findings, and being able to correctly write persuasively (Marion et al., 2018). Abstract Within the scientific community there is a large number of research articles that are published yearly. Making it challenging for individual scientists and other readers to keep up with new information that becomes published. Thus, the purpose of an abstract is to help the reader know if this is something they might be interested in reading about, so they do not have to spend time reading the entire report. In other words, it is a short summary about the lab report such as what research was conducted and with what purpose. In addition, this section includes a short statement stating the results and conclusion for that experiment (Marion et al., 2018).
Specifically, the abstract should remain between 150 and 250 words ("Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper", n.d.). Introduction The introduction section consists of three main parts, background information, hypothesis, and prediction, this is important for the reader to help understand the topic that was investigated for the experiment, this section is taught to be the part where the purpose for the research is described and where the following questions are answered: what background information is required to comprehend the experiment, why the specific hypothesis that is being claimed and what is the hypothesis, which suggested results will be tested from the hypothesis, and briefly state how the experiment will be conducted. Adding background information is important to help the reader comprehend the experiment, what is the hypothesis and the rationale for it. The second part, hypothesis, is important to include because it is the main element for an introduction, an explanation is given on addressing how or why a natural phenomenon happens. This is part is more descriptive, implying a common pattern instead of explaining that pattern. Lastly, for predicted results that follow reasonably from the hypothesis, something directly observable in a specific experiment is described. In other words, in the predicted results the student describes what might occur in two recognizable experiments if the hypothesis were correct. The student uses the observed results to compare them to the predicted results to assess the hypothesis (Marion et al., 2018). In-text citations do need to be added when using someone else’s work in ours. It is important to have a hypothesis because this helps the experimenter have an idea of what they are expecting to find in the experiment that can then be determined if it was supported or not by the experiment and results. I am going to use the hypothesis and the prediction when
performing the experiment to guide me in conducting my experiment based on my goal and hypothesis and to also evaluate my results and recognize if I need to make modifications to my hypothesis or experiment. Methods The purpose of the methods section is to describe the procedures that were used to do the experiment. It gives the reader a chance to critically think about the design of the experiment to decide if it is really a test of the hypothesis and it allows other individuals to test the effectiveness of the conclusions by copying the experiment to verify that they obtain the same results. The details in this section are proof that guarantees the experiment was an efficient way to test the hypothesis by providing backing up to support the expectation underlying the argument. Thus, it is very important to be specific with details in order to allow others to evaluate or recreate the experiment's design. In addition, a list of materials in the methods section needs to be added and is sometimes called "Materials and Methods". The style of writing for the methods section needs to be descriptive instead of interpretive. Usually, readers read the methods section to get a better understanding of the experiment. Therefore, the methods section needs to be a description of what has been done instead of a list of instructions. It is written in past tense with specific details to the specific procedure. Additionally, the methods section is a great source to help remember and comprehend the methods that the student has used to help write a clearer results section and discussion in the lab report (Marion et al., 2018). Results
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