Lab Reports for Physics 161 and 162


An important part of any scientific experiment is the report that documents exactly how the experiment was performed and gives the results of the experiment.  The following provides a set of guidelines for your reports.  

All reports will have the following content.

Purpose.

This section will include a brief description of what you set out to accomplish by doing the experiment.  A paragraph or two is all that is required.

Experimental Measurement Methods and Proceedures.

In this section you will describe what you did.  This will include list of equipment used and how it was used.  The use of figures to show things such as how the equipment was assembled can effectively cut down on the amount of verbiage needed to describe your experiment.  Figures should be clearly labeled using the same symbols that you use for describing things in the text.  For instance, and angle could be labeled by the symbol q.  All figures should be labeled with a figure number and a very short caption.  The figure below is an example of one done with the MS Paint program and imported into MS Word.  Greek letters are obtained with the "SYMBOL" font.


Figure 1.  Inclined plane.  q is changed from 5 to 25 deg. over the course of the experiment.

When figures and tables are labeled as in the above example, reference to them in the text is straightforward.  Tables can be generated in MS Word or Excel.  Often Excel is used since it will expedite repeated calculations.

Data and Calculations.

Unprocessed data are given in this section.  For repeated measurements, tables are a good way to list the data.  All of the data you have must be presented.  Example calculations of all steps in the data reduction process are given in this section.  If repeated calculations are done (using Excel) only one example of each calculation need be given and appropriately described.  Error analysis calculations are also done in this section.  These calculations must be clearly described.

Label all equations (to the right of the equation) with an equation number.  (The numbers should be successively increased by 1 throughout the document.)  An example follows:

      v = (x2-x1)/(t2-t1)                     Equation (1)

where v is the average velocity, x is position along the inclined plane, and t is the time.  

The advantage of this labeling method is that any time you need to refer to this equation only reference to the equation number is needed.  Notice the use of subscripts in Equation 1.  Subscripts are readily done with MS Word using the Format utility.

Final Results.

Your final results are to be presented here.  For instance, you might report that your measured value of the gravitational acceleration, g, was

      g = 9.83 +/- 0.04 m/s2.

In some instances, the results may be presented in a table.
Please pay careful attention to the number of significant digits you use and be sure that they are consistent with the measurement uncertainties and computed final uncertainty.


General Write-up Requirements.

Start each report with a separate title page.  This page should give the title of the experiment, the date, and your name and your lab partner's name.

Reports should be typed (using MS word) and all the pages numbered.  Type all reports using double spacing.  (This gives me space to write comments.)  You may write complicated equations by hand in a space that you leave for that purpose in the otherwise typewritten report.  (They should have equation numbers.)  Drawings may also be done by hand if they are too complicated for MS Paint.  (Figure numbers and legends are still required.)  Tables, however, should always be done in either MS Word or Excel.  Tables should always have appropriate column headings (including units).  When you print tables be sure to turn on the printing of the lines between columns and rows

The lab reports should be written in the third person past tense.  For instance, you might write the following sentence.

"The equipment used included a meter stick, a stop watch, and a vernier caliper."  

This is different than if the first person was used whereby the statement would be

"I used a meter stick, a stop watch, and a vernier caliper."

It is unacceptable for the report to be written in the form of an instruction manual.  For an instruction manual, the above statement would be:

"Use a meter stick, a stop watch, and a vernier caliper."

My general rule of thumb for a good lab report is that I should be able to read the report and be able to exactly repeat what you did.  This means that you must describe your work in sufficient detail so that no key elements of the experimental procedure are missing.

To be good, a lab report need not be long.  Technical writing requires accurate and precise statements.  Excess verbiage is not necessary.  Excessively long sentences can be very confusing.  Always break them up into several short sentences.