- 1). Review the specific lab report requirements provided by your teacher or professor.
- 2). Write the introduction. In this section, include any background information obtained from your research efforts, such as describing past experiments that are similar and facts about the experiment's topic. The objective or purpose of your study and the hypothesis (prediction) should be a part of the introduction as well. Finally, a brief synopsis of the experimental procedure should be included.
- 3). Write the materials and methods section. Include a step-by-step procedure of the experimental process so that someone else could replicate it. Also, provide a list of equipment that was used.
- 4). Compose your results section. Create tables and graphs based on the relevant data you collected from the experiment. Titles should be inserted above tables and below graphs. The independent variable should correspond to the x-axis and the dependent variable should be on the y-axis. To accompany data tables and graphs, write brief sentences to summarize the data included. If you made any qualitative observations during the experiment, you should include them here as well. Finally, if you are required to perform statistical analysis or calculations, you would include these in the results section.
- 5). Explore the meaning of your results to write the discussion section. Describe whether your hypothesis was correct or if the results reveal another outcome. There is also a possibility that your results will not be conclusive and you should talk about this as well. You may also compare your results to those of other students in your class or of past scientists. It is important to add sources of error or how you could improve the experimental design. The most important part of the discussion is to state why your results are important. What does it mean in terms of existing scientific theory, or how does it affect the economy, society or the environment?
- 6). Cite your references and resources. You must include all of the websites, journals and books you used to write your introduction and possibly your methods and discussion sections.
- 7). Write the abstract. An abstract is often required at the university level or for reports that are going to be published. It is a short synopsis of the whole lab report that scientists or other interested parties read to evaluate whether the report is related to their academic pursuits.
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