STRUCTURE OF LAB REPORTS

All lab reports must meet the following requirements;

• All reports must be typed in Times New Roman or Arial, size 12, with 1.5 line
spacing and page numbers.
• Have a title page with your full name, student I.D and Lab group.
• All graphs/figures should be produced with any data analysis software, e.g.
excel (no hand-drawn graphs/graph paper!!).
• Scientific names must be written properly (Genus name starts with upper case
and species name with a lower-case letter, all italicised).
• Must be written in an impersonal form.
• Numbers zero to nine should be written in words, and those above nine written
in figures.
• SMS language is not allowed and will result in a loss of marks.
• Any plagiarism/copying will result in a ZERO for the whole report. (For
both parties, no questions asked)

The lab report should have the following sections

SECTION CONTENTS
Title - Must be appropriate, clear, informative and specific.
- Construct a title that will demonstrate that you understood the point
of the study.
- Consider your keywords to guide your title.
Introduction - This section tells why the study was undertaken it establishes the
(3/4 to 1 framework for the entire report.
page) - There should be an opening statement and a flow of thoughts
(coherence) in your write-up.
- Your introduction should be brief and well thought out. Good scientific
writing is precise, do not waffle.
- Define specialised terminology, but your write up should not be a
series of definitions.
- Briefly explain any specialised technique to be carried out or how
specialised equipment works.
- The background information must be related to the investigation.
- Write to illuminate, not to impress; use the simplest words and
phrasing to explain precisely what you mean.
- Support all statements of fact and opinion with evidence i.e. cites
literature; credible sources only.
- Never set out to prove, verify or demonstrate the truth of something.
Rather set out to test, document or describe.
- Your introduction must lead to an aim/ objective (which should be
included at the end of your introduction).
-
Methods - Must give sufficient detail on how the investigation was conducted.
The detail should allow someone else or even yourself to repeat the
investigation.
- Should be passive and in past tense.
- Should be written in continuous /essay format not point form.
 - Do not list the materials used separately, these should rather be
reflected in the write up as you outline what was done.
- Do not give unnecessary details and do not departure from the given
instructions.
- Include;
- variables measured
- variables to be computed and how this would be done, e.g.
use of formulae
Results - This is the center piece of your report.
- Shows a record of the data you have obtained through your
experiment.
- Synthesise and consolidate the raw data. Simply presenting raw
data is not acceptable.
- Your results need to have supportive text. No table or figure should
stand without results in words i.e the trends/observations of your
results. You need to tell the reader what key pattern(s) to note from
the table or figure.
- Only highlight the major points, do not redraw the graphs in words.
The highlights should be related to the objective/research
question/hypothesis/prediction (This is your trend) and should come
BEFORE the tables and figures.
- Decide on the best way of presenting the synthesised data; table,
graph, pie chart e.t.c. Do not present the same data in more than one
way, e.g., in table and graph form.
- Each table must have
- a table number and an informative title above the table.
- properly labelled columns and rows
- Each graph must have
- a figure number and an informative title below the figure.
- properly labelled axes
- Any other figure (diagrams, pictures, etc.) must have
- a figure number and an informative title below the figure.
- proper and clear labels
- Refer to the tables and figures using table and figure numbers,
respectively.
- If there are any calculations, give an example of how this was done.
The reader wants to be satisfied that the figures presented are correct
(the rest should be placed in the appendices section).
Discussion - This is where you discuss the pattern(s) highlighted in the results
(3/4 to 1 section. Avoid veering away from the objective of the experiment.
page) - Remember, this is a discussion, so it is not acceptable to simply
restate the results.
- Do the results support your hypothesis? Are the results as you had
predicted?
- What is the meaning and importance of your results?
- What does the literature say? For example, studies with similar
results and those with different results.
Conclusion - The conclusion should be in line with the objective of the experiment,
results presented and the discussion.
- New information should NOT be included in the conclusion section.
 - State your findings. Have your aims been fulfilled?
References - Must be written in proper format (use Harvard method of referencing).
- All references must have been cited in the report.
- List references in alphabetical order according to the first author,
followed by the year of publication.
- If there are two or more authors for a publication, do not rearrange
the names but list them in the order they appear in the publication.
- Use only the last names and initials of authors
- Latin names, including species names, should be in italics
- Use modern literature, i.e. recent publications (within the past 10
years).
Appendices - Include raw data
- Any calculations

CITATIONS IN THE REPORT (improper citing of literature will result in a loss of

marks)
Always acknowledge the source of information.
- Read what is published by other people. Go ahead and analyse, synthesise and
interpret the information. Pick what is relevant to your investigation, and then PUT
IT IN YOUR OWN WORDS.
- Now that you have put it in your own words, do not claim the idea as yours.
Acknowledge the source of information by a citation.
- Citations must be written in proper format (surname followed by the year of
publication).
- All cited publications must appear in the reference section.
- Only cite what you have read. Do not base your report on secondhand information.
- Use credible sources only; WEBSITES such as blogs and Wikipedia are not
allowed.

Citing
• Cite only what you have read
• Cite by author’s surname and year of publication only
- Do not include first names, middle names, or initials
- This should form part of the sentence, so any punctuation should not cut
off a citation from the rest of a sentence
- May incorporate a citation into a sentence
e.g. Leteane (2015) demonstrated that …
… was demonstrated by Leteane (2015).
- One author, cite as Pechenik (2016)
- Two authors, cite as Pechenik and Lamb (1994)
- More than two authors, cite as Sadava et al. (2016)
The surname of the first author is followed by et al.
The words et al. should be italicised or underlined, even though this is an
abbreviation.

- Citing more than one publication by the same author

. publications in different years: separate them with a semicolon, listing
them in chronological order, e.g., (Pechenik 2020; 2016)
 . publications in the same year: use letters to distinguish them, e.g., (
Pechenik, 2026a; 2016b)

- Citing more than one publication: separate with semicolons, and list in
chronological order, e.g., (Pechenik and Lamb, 1994; Mpoloka 2016)

The reference section

This is where details of the publications, which you cited, are given. These details give
the reader information to locate the publications you used and to be able verify
statements or opinions.

• List references in alphabetical order, according to the surname of the first

author.
If a publication has more than one author, do not rearrange the names. List
the authors in the order in which they appear in the publication.

• Use initials for first and middle names

• Books
- Include the publisher and place of publication in the reference
- Content may change between editions, therefore the edition of the book
should always follow the title
• Formats, including punctuation, may differ from journal to journal
- Pick a style and use it throughout the reference section
- Pay particular attention to punctuation
- The important thing is to be consistent in the way you write references

Web sites
• May be frequently updated, so information may be altered or even removed
from the site. When writing a reference, it is important to state when the
information was accessed.
• Some of the information published in web sites has not been monitored,
refereed, peer reviewed, or vetted. Extra caution should be exercised when
using the information.
• Authors and/or dates of publication might not be stated. One has to exercise
caution.

NOTE
• All cited publications must appear in the reference section
• All references must have been cited in the text
Some examples

Type of Reference Citing

resource
Book (One Pechenik, J. A. 2016. A Short Guide to Writing Pechenik
author) about Biology 9th edition. Pearson Education (2016) or
Inc., USA.
 (Pechenik,
2016)
Book (Two Pechenik, J. and Lamb, B. 1994. How to Write Pechenik and
authors) about Biology. Pearson education Limited, Lamb (1994) or
Essex, UK. (Pechenik and
Lamb, 1994)

Book (More than Jones, A., Reed, R. and Weyers, J. 2003. Jones et al.
two authors) Practical Skills in Biology, 3rd edition. Pearson (2003) or
Education Limited, Essex, UK. (Jones et al.,
2003)

Edited book Fontana-Giusti, G. (ed.). 2008. Designing Fontana-Giusti

Cities for People: Social, Environmental and (2008) or
Psychological Sustainability. Earthscan, (Fontana-
London. Giusti, 2008)

Chapter in an Marshall, W. A. 1975. The Child as a Mirror of Marshall (1975)

edited book his Brain’s Development. In Sants, J. and or
Butcher, H. J. (eds.). Development (Marshall,
Psychology. Hazell Watson and Viney Ltd., 1975)
Aylesbury, Bucks.

Journal Trefts, K. and Blaksee, S. 2000. Did you hear Trefts and
the one about Boolean Operators? Blacksee
Incorporating comedy into the library induction. (2000) or
Reference Services Review. 28: 369-378. (Trefts and
Blacksee,
2000)
Internet BBC NEWS. 2008. Factory gloom worst since BBC (2008) or
1980. Available from (BBC, 2008)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/business/7681569.stm.
(Accessed: 19th June 2012).