Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: [Phys-l] format for lab reports



Karl Trappe wrote:

"I recall, from my own indoctrination, the standard format found in the
lab textbook of the 60's. Generally, it included: objective, method,
data sheet, results, analysis and interpretation, etc. Sometimes it
included apparatus and a discussion as to how it worked."
"Beyond its historical significance, it rarely fits the research or
research paper reality, so I am curious how we continue to justify it."

"As an experimental physicist, I did NOT use such a report format for
anything. Is it still in use by engineering companies, as our continued
use in intro labs would suggest?"

I do work for an engineering company and do have to write-up the results
of my work (usually the results of mathematical analyses or numerical
simulations predicting the performance of systems not yet built). While
these write-ups are not "lab reports" they do have many of the features
mentioned above. Typically I use the following sections:

1) Introduction (Gives the objective, scope of the effort, and a brief
statement of the methodology).
2) Conclusions (A simple list of one sentence conclusions I arrived at
after doing all the work)
3) Recommendations (A simple list of one sentence recommendations for
follow-on efforts or how to "do it better" the next time).
4) Methodology (Summary of the main procedures/techniques/equipment used
to obtain the results)
5) Results (Includes a summary of the input data and results obtained.
Usually this section contains many graphs and several tables.)
6) Discussion of Results (Comments about the results and why they came
out that way which may not be obvious from the graphs and tables and
cursory explanations given in the Results section).

Although the Conclusions and Recommendations sections logically fit
after the Discussion of Results section, I have found that many managers
(and co-workers!) feel that they only have time to read the summary
Introduction, Conclusions, and Recommendations sections. So putting all
the "bottom lines" up front helps ensure that they actually get seen.

The outline I use is very close to the 60's lab report mentioned above,
but, at least in this case, form follows function.

As one significant change from the 60's, I now implement the above
outline in PowerPoint. So the actual text in the "write-up" is minimal
(I must admit, this usually means the Discussion of Results section gets
left out), but all the main points, arguments, and data are there with
supporting graphics ready for a group (or customer) presentation.

Don Polvani
Northrop Grumman Corp.
Undersea Systems
Annapolis, MD 21404