How to write
How to Write a Lab Report: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide
Author:
Samantha Williams
Aug 23, 2024
11 min
Table of contents
How to Do a Lab Report: The Ultimate Guide
Most students face their first-ever lab report at some point in their academic careers. It’s a common assignment type in such classes as biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Even if you aren’t a STEM major, you’ll probably have to write a lab report sooner rather than later.
But what does a lab report look like? A lab report is a structured paper type distinct from more “narrative” essay-like assignments. Lab reports typically include an introduction, a description of the methods, a results section, a discussion, a conclusion, and a bibliography. An abstract is also expected in most cases.
Lab reports can vary in structure and purpose (for example, a descriptive vs. an analytical lab report). However, what unites most lab report assignments is that they have a more or less rigid structure that students must follow. Let’s talk about it in more detail.
Step 0 in a Lab Report Guide: Choosing the Topic
A lab report starts with a topic. Sure, more often than not, professors expect students to write a lab report on a topic related to what they’re currently learning in class (or at least choose from a list of pre-approved topics). Still, that’s not always the case - especially if you’re taking an introductory STEM course and don’t have many homework assignments.
If you can choose any topic as long as it’s relevant to your course, we recommend focusing on three things.
- What genuinely interests you? A lab report is one of the more challenging paper types you’ll have to write; seeing things through will require time and dedication. You’re more likely to succeed if you write about something interesting and want to investigate.
- What’s feasible? Go with a practical topic to investigate within your resources, time, and equipment constraints.
- What is well-researched but not over-researched? Frankly, your professor will hardly appreciate another paper on photosynthesis (unless it’s what the instructions require).
Now, what should a lab report look like? Let’s dive into the lab report structure.
How Should a Lab Report Look? Format, Structure, Language
To write a decent lab report, you need to know the standard lab report setup, meaning its specific format and organization. As discussed, the type of report you’re expected to prepare can affect the structure.
Descriptive lab reports—more common in introductory courses—focus on describing an experiment and its outcomes in detail. In contrast, analytical lab reports are more complex and imply analyzing the results in depth.
Still, the overwhelming majority of lab reports include the following elements:
- Abstract. It’s a summary of your entire report.
- Introduction. The introduction introduces the reader to the topic and normally includes some background information, the objective of the experiment you’ve conducted and are now describing, and the hypothesis you intended to test with your experiment.
- Methods and Materials. This section details all equipment and resources you used and your methods (a step-by-step description of the procedures you followed during the experiment).
- Results. What did you find? Results include data presentation (tables, graphs, charts, etc.) and statistical analysis.
- Discussion. This is where you interpret your results and explain their significance.
- Conclusion. A summary of the key points of your report and a tentative answer to the implied “So what?”
- Bibliography. A list of all sources you cited.
A Good Lab Report Title - Clear, Specific, and Ideally, Concise
Now that you know how to choose a topic and understand what goes into a lab report, you must consider your paper’s title. You can refine it later, but having at least a working title is helpful.
So, how to title a lab report? A good title is a clear, concise, and specific statement reflecting your experiment's focus. For example, Plant Growth is too generic and unclear, whereas The Effects of Light Intensity on the Growth Rate of Pea Plants is perfect.
To give you an idea, here are a few good lab report titles:
- Psychology: The Role of Cognitive Load in Risky Decision-Making
- Engineering: Dynamic Load Analysis of Carbon Fiber Composites
- Biology: Stress-Induced Genetic Adaptation in Fruit Flies
- Chemistry: Selective Oxidation of Alcohols with Green Catalysts
These are just examples. Hopefully, they will help you formulate your title clearly and concisely.
How to Start a Lab Report: Overcoming the Blank Page Syndrome
The question we see almost as often as “What are lab reports?” is “How do I start a lab report?” The so-called blank page syndrome is a thing. As you probably know by now, the hardest part of writing any paper is to begin.
Most students - and frankly, everyone who writes something longer than emails regularly—will probably agree that the process starts smoother once you’ve written the first paragraph.
We recommend drafting a fairly detailed outline before writing that first paragraph. Include bullet points to indicate what information and in what order you will place in each section.
If you already know which specific sources you’ll cite, it also helps to add quotes with in-text citations to the paragraphs or sections they’ll go into. Outlining can be tedious, but we promise—it makes writing faster and less intimidating.
Formatting the Title Page for Lab Report Papers
Some people prefer doing the formatting after they’ve already written and polished everything; others start with it. Do whatever works for you. But since the title page is the first thing the reader will see when looking at your lab report, let’s discuss it briefly before moving on to the actual body of your lab report.
How to format the title page of a lab report depends entirely on the referencing style you’re expected to follow according to the instructions you received. The most common one in STEM courses—where you’ll get most of your lab report assignments—is the American Psychological Association (APA). Here’s what your APA lab report title page will look like:
Title
Student
School
Course
Instructor
Due Date
For example:
Dynamic Load Analysis of Carbon Fiber Composites
Jeena Hoover
Georgia Institute of Technology
Advanced Mechanics of Composite Materials
Dr. Madelin R. Green
May 11, 2024
The Last Thing to Do Before Writing a Lab Report—Bibliography
Before we finally get into the structure of your lab report’s body part, let’s discuss a bibliography. It’s an essential part of almost every academic assignment, and despite its empirical nature, a lab report isn’t an exception.
You must reference reliable scholarly sources - ideally, peer-reviewed and recent - throughout your paper, especially in the introduction and discussion. It’s how you’ll justify your choice of topic and give the reader the necessary context.
Some students prefer formatting their bibliography after writing the paper, but we recommend starting with it. You will easily edit it later on if necessary. However, having a draft bibliography will make it less likely for you to confuse the sources you’re citing and accidentally misquote something. It will also help you focus on a few key sources and avoid being overwhelmed with all the options available in different databases.
The Standard Lab Report Structure: What Goes into a Lab Report
As discussed, a typical lab report includes the following sections:
- Title Page. This is the easiest part. Simply format the title page using the appropriate referencing style. There are helpful templates in all official style manuals, so you shouldn’t have any issues with that.
- Abstract. A good abstract is about 150 to 250 words long. It should give the reader a good idea of your experiment and findings.
- Introduction. Discuss the necessary background information, the objective of your research, and the hypothesis.
- Methods and Materials. Make sure to list all the equipment and justify the methods used for the experiment.
- Results. Present the data you’ve gathered during the experiment.
- Discussion. Discuss the findings in the context of existing research in the field.
- Conclusion. Summarize your report.
- Bibliography. List everything you’ve cited in alphabetical order using the correct citation style.
- Appendices. Not all lab reports have appendices, but most do. Appendices contain any additional material that supports your report but are too detailed to include in the main sections. They include raw and supplementary data. Raw data refers to original data sets, extensive calculations, or supplementary graphs and tables. Supplementary data include detailed protocols, questionnaires, or sample calculations.
Main Lab Report Sections: Musts vs. Good-to-Have’s
Are all the sections of a lab report that we’ve listed here mandatory?—No, but most are. In particular, it’s extremely rare for a lab report not to have an introduction, methods and materials, results, discussion, conclusion, or bibliography. Exceptions exist, but most students are expected to have each of these in their lab reports.
In turn, whether or not your report needs an abstract and appendices depends on the instructions and the need (or lack thereof) to include raw and supplementary data. Some professors don’t expect students to write an abstract or add appendices, especially if the assignment is relatively short.
Musts: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and a Bibliography
By now, you probably have a good idea of what goes into each of the essential sections of a lab report, meaning an introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and bibliography. The only thing we’d like to add is that all of these are important. If you have a great intro but a half-heartedly written methods section, your grade will suffer massively—and vice versa.
A side note: It’s uncommon for lab reports, but if you haven’t used any materials during your experiment, you will only have to discuss your methods in the methods and materials section. Remember, though, that even something as self-evident as a laptop or a participant data sheet still counts as materials.
Additional Steps of a Lab Report: What Else to Include
An abstract and appendices are both nice to have but not always mandatory. You can clarify with your professor if you aren’t sure whether or not to include those. That being said, most lab reports do have them.
However, some lab reports include a few additional sections (and yours might need, too) that are way less common. A few examples are acknowledgments, a separate section for the hypothesis you’re testing, safety considerations, limitations, and suggestions for future research. They are normally part of mandatory sections, but you can separate them for clarity or organization.
How to Structure a Lab Report—Results and Discussion Sections
Results and discussion are the longest and arguably the key parts of any lab report. They are the two sections students find the hardest to write and often struggle with.
So, what should they include?
Results: presented data with tables and figures, descriptive titles, consistent formatting, a summary of key findings without interpretations, and statistical analyses (such as P-values, confidence intervals, etc.).
Discussion: Interpret the results of your experiment; compare them with the relevant literature you discussed in the introduction; identify potential errors and impacts on results; provide alternative explanations for your findings; identify limitations of your research; and provide suggestions for future research.
How to Write a Lab Introduction and What to Include
The introductory section of your lab report will depend on the instructions, including the expected word count of the entire paper.
However, there are a few components that most lab report introductions include:
Background information, including the context and relevance of your research, the definition and explanation and the key concepts.
Literature review (if required). A summary of previous studies on your topic, including the main gaps in the existing body of literature.
The purpose and hypothesis of your experiment—why you’re conducting the study and what theory you’re trying to test.
Significance of your study. Why does what you’re researching matter?
How to Write a Good Lab Report: A Few Final Tips
Hopefully, you now have an idea of how to do a lab write up. You know how to pick a good topic and formulate a clear title, and you’re also familiar with all the nuances of formatting a lab report.
Before you start writing, though, we’d like to give you a few more helpful tips that will help you write an excellent lab report you can be proud of:
- Keep your tone objective and impersonal. The language of a lab report is supposed to be drier than an essay's.
- Review for consistency in terminology, acronyms, and abbreviations.
- Provide just enough details in the methods and materials section. Too little will make the reader confused; too much will bore them.
- Use appropriate headings and subheadings to keep your report well-structured and easy to navigate.
- Reference your tables, charts, and other figures in the text. For example, write something like, “As shown in Figure 1, the temperature increased steadily throughout the reaction.”
- Include uncertainties. Where applicable, include uncertainties in your measurements and results. Acknowledging the limitations of your data isn’t a weakness. On the contrary, it will probably give you extra points.
You’re all set now—good luck with your lab report!
FAQ
A lab report is a detailed and well-structured description of an experiment. So, no, the answer to how to do lab report papers differs from most research papers. A lab report includes methodology, results, and data analysis—which aren’t always required in a research paper.
A lab report typically consists of the following sections: the title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and references. It often includes tables, graphs, and figures that present data visually. Also, most lab reports have appendices for all the raw and supplementary data that couldn’t fit into the body of the report.
To create a lab report as soon as possible, start by outlining the key sections. Try to be clear and concise; use bullet points or shorthand wherever possible. Gather your data and results first, then build the narrative around them. Also, consider using templates and relevant software tools for formatting and calculations.
A lab report has a rigid structure, so the question of how to type a lab report makes perfect sense. Your lab report should have a title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, references, and appendices (if any). The most common referencing style for lab reports is APA, but that’s not always true. Triple-check the instructions you received from the professor.
