I'll let others comment on a review, but personally I the consider lab
report a totally artificial animal. Has anyone ever had to write a 'lab
report' outside of an undergraduate course? Maybe one could argue for lab
reports as training for writing papers--but in my mind, they are too
different for the lab report exercise to be useful. Here is a hint for
anyone overloaded with work due to lab reports--don't assign them. Rather,
give short, open lab book quizzes where you ask them to write down the kinds
of information you want them to have in the lab book. You can test units,
calculations, sig-figs (if you are so inclined), organization, results,
conclusions--just about anything that 'should' appear in lab work in a
compact, easy to grade format. Sure beats slogging through dozens of lab
books and student handwriting. ;-)
rwt
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana
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----- Original Message -----
From: "alex brown" <aesbrown77@yahoo.co.uk>
To: "Forum for Physics Educators" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 11:26 AM
Subject: [Phys-l] Writing a review or lab report
What rules and guidlines do you give your students? Should they write the
present or past tense?.. Ie the results were found to be in good agreement
or the reults agree well with theoretical calculations...