Writing Scientific Reports Using LATEX∗

Fiz A. Cist†
University of Florida Department of Physics
(Dated: August 4, 2011)
This part, the abstract is an essential part of a scientific paper—often the only component freely
viewable from search engines. It should briefly summarize the background, the purpose, the method,
and most importantly, the quantitative results with errors. Based on those, a conclusion may be
drawn. In this paper, we present a LATEX template for formal reports in PHY4803L. It is based
on the REVTEX document class from the American Physical Society—a standard for the Physical
Review journals as well as many others. Your paper should demonstrate your mastery of the entire
experiment. It should be neat in appearance with correct English. It should be concise; four single-
spaced pages including figures should suffice. Not included in the four-page limit, appendices can
be used to present data that is summarized in the main body, for derivations referred to in the main
body, and for answers to questions posed in the experimental guides.

1. INTRODUCTION AND THEORY The source files1 for this document may be used as
a template for your Advanced Lab papers. Spending a
few hours studying and altering the sample-paper.tex and
The introduction typically places the current work in sample-paper.bib files will allow you to develop sufficient
context with prior work and explains what new physics mastery of LATEX to easily generate all manner of techni-
is involved and why the article is worth reading. For cal documents. Specific instructions for compiling LATEX
your articles, use one or more paragraphs to succinctly documents on Windows operating systems are contained
explain the motivation, purpose and relevant background in the appendices.
to the experiment. This should be done at a level so that
The writing process involves at least three distinct
another lab student could follow your development.
steps: prewriting or outlining, drafting, and revising or
A full theory section should not normally be needed editing. Given the tight time constraints in Advanced
for our advanced lab experiments. So use the introduc- Lab, students are advised to begin the drafting process
tion to present the main physics variables and formulas before finishing their lab sessions. Most of the first draft
you will use. Trace their origin to the physics involved. can be accomplished during the latter sessions of an ex-
Don’t provide derivations, but do describe what new as- periment.
sumptions are needed. Formulas involving measurement The essence of expository writing is the communica-
conversions, instrument settings or other apparatus de- tion of understanding through a clear and concise pre-
tails should be relegated to the apparatus and experiment sentation of predominately factual material.[2, 3] Most
section. people cannot compose successful expository prose un-
Here we will use the introduction to discuss technical less they put the need to communicate foremost among
writing issues. their priorities. Two things predominate in generating
understanding in the reader:
One resource for developing into a strong technical
writer is the UF Reading and Writing Center[1]. Stu- Organization: The reader must be provided with an
dents can even receive free consultations on their written overview or outline, know how each fact fits
reports through this office! into that overall picture, and must be specifically
An important part of your education as a physicist is alerted about any especially important fact. Fur-
learning to use standard tools for sharing your work with thermore, the facts must be presented in a logical
others. In Advanced Lab, we will instruct you in the order—so that fact 17 is not important for under-
use of LATEX for writing scientific papers in a widely ac- standing fact 12.
cepted professional style. Articles submitted for publica-
tion in a professional journal must be suitably formatted Depth: Bearing in mind the preexisting knowledge of
according to the journal guidelines. Physical Review Let- the reader, the writer must budget the length of
ters and many others adhere to the APS Physics Review discussion allotted to each topic in proportion to
Style and Notation Guide. The REVTEX homepage has its importance.
additional reference material. Writing a journal-like article for the lab report is great
practice for improving your technical writing. Thus we
urge you to concentrate on your overall presentation, not
∗ This document was adapted from the original—written for MIT
Junior lab students, web.mit.edu/8.13/www/
† Electronic address: [email protected]; URL: http://www.phys.

ufl.edu/courses/phy4803L/ 1 www.phys.ufl.edu/courses/phy4803L/sample-paper.zip
2

m ix e r
only on the facts themselves. We strongly recommend s a m p le tu b e
that you: c a p a c ito r
d ire c tio n a l R F c o m p u te r
c o u p le r o s c illa to r
1. Base your report on an outline.
2. Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence which a m p lifie r
expresses the main area of concern and the main
B 0
conclusion of the paragraph. Put less important
material later in the paragraph.
Point 2 is frequently absent in novice reports; topic sen- s ta tic fie ld
R F c o il c o il
tences are your mechanism for telling the reader what is
under discussion and where it fits into the overall picture.
You can check your topic sentences by reading them in FIG. 1: Figures should be inserted into the text in their nat-
order, i.e., omit all the following sentences in each para- ural positions. Command options can be used to crop, scale,
graph; this should give a fair synopsis of your paper. or rotate the figure. The size of this graphic was set by the
width command. The aspect ratio defaults to 1.0 if the height
If you are writing up results you obtained with a
is not also set. When creating figures, choose large font sizes
partner, use we for work performed together and I for in graph labels and other figure information; the figure should
work performed alone. Use the past tense for your pro- be legible when scaled to fit in a single column. This part—the
cedure and analysis, and the present for your results. caption—should be clear and comprehensible. Use the cap-
“LiF xray diffraction angles were measured to ±0.2◦ tion to elaborate on specific issues, features, complications, or
and are consistent with an FCC lattice with a spacing operating procedures. Adapted from [4, 5].
a0 = (4.035 ± 0.014) nm.” Note that units are in normal
(not math) fonts; the source file shows how to make this
happen while inside the LATEX math mode. physics of the experiment. And in some cases, it is proper
Lastly: Remember to proofread your paper for to describe procedures in this section. When it aids the
spelling and grammar mistakes. Few things are logical flow of the paper, keep procedures, data, analysis,
as offensive to a reviewer as careless writing and and results together.
such mistakes will count against you! Either here or in the previous section, be sure to dis-
play representative raw data. Where there is an abun-
dance of data, consider using an appendix to present it.
2. APPARATUS AND EXPERIMENT See, for example, Fig. 5.

With reference to one or more figures, this section de-

scribes the apparatus and procedures that give rise to Determination of Fine Structure Splitting
140
the raw data. Also discuss the data’s random errors and Gauss3 Dataset
the sources and sizes of possible systematic errors. In- 120
clude here critical observations of any noteworthy issues
associated with the apparatus. 100

The apparatus figure should contain a block diagram or

Signal [cps]

80
schematic of the equipment and perhaps include the most
important signal processing steps. The figure should be 60

referenced and placed as early as possible in this section.

40
Place additional information within the figures or in Model: y(x) =a1e−b1x+a2*e−((x−b2)/c2) +a3*e−((x−b3)/c3)
2 2

χ2ν−1 = 0.82
their captions to help you stay within the four page limit. 20
Energy Splitting = 36.1±0.3nm
Example first sentence of an experimental sec-
0
tion: The experimental apparatus consists of a specially 50 100 150 200 250
prepared chemical sample containing 13 CHCl3 , an NMR Wavelength [bin]
spectrometer, and a control computer, as shown in Fig. 1.

FIG. 2: Sample figure describing a set of data, fit procedures

3. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS and results. Use the caption space to provide more details
about the fitting procedure, results or implications if you do
This section should demonstrate how the raw data lead not have sufficient room in the main body of text.
to the main results. Make a complete estimate of the un-
certainties in your results—both random and systematic. Often the raw data are analyzed in a specific way that
In some cases, it is proper to put data and analysis in needs to be clearly communicated to the reader. For ex-
the experiment section, particularly if it is more about ample, the peak positions in a spectrum may be required.
the apparatus and its parameters than about the main A graphic demonstrating a typical fit result, functional
 3

sults with theoretical expectations or other experimen-

tal values with respect to the standard deviations of the
Test of the theoretical Geiger−Nuttall Relationship quantities involved. Make suggestions for improvements
10
French and Taylor (1978) and describe additional experiments that could be at-
5
tempted with this or an improved apparatus. Be adven-
turous with your suggestions.
It is worth mentioning here some thoughts on ethics
0
and writing in science.
When you read the report of a physics experiment in
log10 γ

−5 a reputable journal (e.g., Physical Review Letters) you

can generally assume it represents an honest effort by
−10 Fit Slope = −145 ± 5 the authors to describe exactly what they observed. You
may doubt the interpretation or the theory they create
−15
1/2
Barrier Penetrability ∼ Ae−C/E to explain the results. But at least you trust that if
log10γ = const − 155/E1/2
MeV you repeat the manipulations as described, you will get
−20
essentially the same experimental results.
0.32 0.34 0.36 0.38 0.4 0.42 0.44 0.46 0.48 0.5
Nature is the ultimate enforcer of truth in science.
E−1/2 If subsequent work proves a published measurement is
wrong by substantially more than the estimated error
limits, a reputation shrinks. If fraud is discovered, a ca-
FIG. 3: Sample figure showing overall physical relationship reer may be ruined. So most professional scientists are
you set out to test. very careful about the records they maintain and the re-
sults and errors they publish.
In keeping with the spirit of trust in science, Advanced
model, and reduced χ2 is shown in Fig. 2. Finally, there Lab instructors will assume that what you record in your
should be a graph or table which summarizes the exper- lab book and report in your written and oral presenta-
imental data, and which conveys the primary findings of tions is exactly what you have observed.
the laboratory exercise. For example, the Geiger-Nuttall Using other people’s words without acknowledgement
relationship as shown in Fig. 3 or Table I containing re- is a serious intellectual crime and possible causes for dis-
sults of xray spectra analyses. missal from the University. The appropriate way to in-
corporate an idea which you have learned from a text-
TABLE I: An example table with footnotes. Note that several book or other reference is to study the point until you
entries share the same footnote. Always use a preceding zero understand it and then put the text aside and state the
in the data you record in tables. Always display units. idea in your own words. Fabrication or falsification of
Inspect the LATEX input for this table to see exactly how it is data and using the results of another person’s work with-
done. out acknowledgement are offenses of similar gravity.
rc (Å) r0 (Å) κr0 rc (Å) r0 (Å) κr0 One often sees, in a scientific journal, phrases such
as “Following Bevington and Melissinos [4, 6] ...” This
Cu 0.800 14.10 2.550 Sna 0.680 1.870 3.700
means that the author is following the ideas or logic of
Ag 0.990 15.90 2.710 Pba 0.450 1.930 3.760 these authors and not their exact words. If you do choose
Tl 0.480 18.90 3.550 to quote material, it is not sufficient just to include the
a Here’s the first, from Ref. [6].
original source among the list of references at the end of
your paper. If a few sentences or more are imported from
another source, that section should be
Additional graphics, such as Figure 2, should be well
thought out and crafted to maximize their information indented on both sides or enclosed in quotes,
content while retaining clarity of expression. Try to avoid and attribution must be given immediately in
the temptation to inundate the reader with too many the form of a reference note.[4]
graphics. It is worth spending some time thinking of
how best to present information rather than just creating If you have any question at all about attribution of
graph after graph of uninformative data. sources, please see the course instructor. The University
has produced an online video with additional information
about how to avoid plagiarism.
4. CONCLUSIONS

Summarize and discuss the findings of the experiment. 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY REMARKS

Report all your results with appropriate significant digits,
units, and uncertainties, e.g., Q = (2.12±0.06)×1010 dis- Bibliographies are very important in Advanced Lab
integrations s−1 . When appropriate, compare your re- papers. Beyond the requisite citation of source material,
4

M
FPM Fabry-Perot FPM PD2

M
NBS PD1
Rb cell
M probe beam
laser

λ/4
A1
pump beam
M M
APP PBS TBS λ/4 L1 L2

FIG. 4: This is a two-column figure using the figure* environment. Two column figures can’t be on the first page and LATEX
often has trouble with their placement.

they provide evidence of your literature research beyond

the experimental guides. Literature searches, appropri- X
ate references to other research, and bibliographies are |Mgviol |2 = gS2n−4 (Q2 ) N n−2 (N 2 − 1)
an integral part of experimental research. Bibliographic  
entries are made within a separate ‘.bib’ file which gets X X 1 1 X
×  cfτ . (2)
attached during the process of building a final PDF doc- S12 S12
i<j perm τ
ument. See the bibliography file sample-paper.bib (in-
cluded in the zip file) for details on several types of bib- It is often useful to group related equations to denote
liographic entries and their required and optional fields. their relationship, e.g., in a derivation. Enclosing single-
line and multiline equations in \begin{subequations}
and \end{subequations} will produce a set of equations
6. TYPESETTING MATHEMATICS
that are “numbered” with letters, as shown in Equa-
tions. (3a) and (3b) below:
One of the great powers of LATEX is it’s ability to type-
Pa 
set all manner of mathematical expressions. While it 
1
does take a short while to get used to the syntax, it will abc123456abcdef αβγδ1234556αβ 2 b (3a)
A
soon become second nature. Numbered, single-line equa-
tions are the most common and are usually referenced in
the text; e.g., see Eq. 1. 2
M = igZ (4E1 E2 )1/2 (li2 )−1 (gσe 2 )2 χ−σ2 (p2 ). (3b)
!
−1/2 |p| + pz Note how you can also create a reference to Eqs. 3, i.e., all
χ+ (p) . [2|p|(|p| + pz )] . (1)
px + ipy subequations, by proper location of the \label command
that creates the references.
Occasionally, long equations which span more than one Mathematics can also be placed directly in the
line of a two-column page may be required. A good so- text using delimiters: ψ~ = |ψ1 i ≡ c0 |0i +
i2 1
lution is to split-up the equation into multiple lines and
h
y −f (x )
c1 |1iχ2 ≈
Q P i
σi
i
|ψ1 i ∼ limµ→∞ p(x; µ) ≥
label all with a single equation number, like in Equa- 2 Rx
−(x−µ)
tion 2. See the LATEX file to see how this is done. √ 1
2πµ
e /2µ
P (x)  −∞ p(x0 )dx0 a × b ± c ⇒ ∇~.

[1] University of florida reading and writing center, URL htm.

http://www.at.ufl.edu/rwcenter/. [3] D. Pritchard, Junior lab written report notes (1990).
[2] J. P. Leslie C. Perelman and E. Barrett, The Mayfield [4] A. Melissinos, Experiments in Modern Physics (Academic
Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing (Mayfield, Press, 1966).
1998), URL https://web.mit.edu/21.guide/www/home. [5] A. Melissinos and J. Napolitano, Experiments in Modern
 5

Physics (Academic Press, 2003), chap. 5, pp. 179–184, 2nd Other output files such as a sample-paper.log file are also
ed. made during compilation.
[6] P. Bevington and D. Robinson, Data Reduction and Error Use the LaTeX=>PDF Output Profile in the
Analysis for the Physical Sciences (McGraw-Hill, 2003). TEXnicCenter toolbar to directly create pdf files
from LATEX source files. The toolbar includes ‘Build
current file,’ ‘View Output,’ and ‘Build and view current
APPENDIX A: LATEX UNDER WINDOWS
file’ options. The first and last recompile the source into
a pdf file. The middle simply views the most current
MiKTEX (pronounced mik-tech is a freely available, PDF. Typically two or three repeated calls to build
implementation of TEX and related programs avail- the PDF output file are necessary to resolve any nested
able from www.miktex.org. Note that MiKTEX it- references.
self runs from a command line prompt and is not The \bibliography{sample-paper} command gener-
terribly convenient. A very nice LATEX editor/shell ates the bibliography at that point in the document. It
called TEXnicCenter is also freely available from www. invokes the ‘bibtex’ macro package that reads in the bib-
texniccenter.org. liography file ‘sample-paper.bib’ allowing citation refer-
Once you’ve installed the above software, you will need ences to be resolved. Additional files get regenerated
to download sample-paper.zip and extract files listed be- when you build your PDF document.
low to their own directory in order to ‘rebuild’ this doc- TEXnicCenter, includes a spell checker that ig-
ument from scratch. You should probably build your nores most LATEX commands. Be sure that you
report starting from bare-paper.tex which will lessen the spell check and check grammar before handing in
amount of material that needs to be deleted. your paper!
APPENDIX B: PDFCREATOR AND LATEX
sample-paper.tex The main paper.
sample-paper.bib The text file where reference infor- Excel and MatLab are the most common analysis tools
mation is located. used by Advanced Lab students for data analysis and
graphing. LabVIEW is our most commonly used soft-
figure files The files sample-fig1.pdf through sample- ware for experimental control and display. All lab soft-
fig4.pdf files are PDF-viewable figures requested in ware printable output can be saved directly into a ‘PDF’
the sample-paper.tex file. They can be created with format by printing to the PDFCreator printer driver. If
the PDFCreator printer available on the lab com- the output is a full 8.5 × 11 inch PDF page, and you only
puters. want an area, it can be cropped when inserted into the
sample-paper.pdf This is the PDF file created by the LATEX file. See the source file for the syntax. This has
LATEX compiler. been done on Fig. 4. This figure uses the two-column
figure* environment for a figure that needs the extra
bare-paper.tex A nearly bare template. width.
 6
subplot(2,2,1) subplot(2,2,2)
150 150

100 100

50 50

Counts
Counts
0 0

−50 −50
−100 0 100 200 300 −100 0 100 200 300
Energy MeV Energy MeV

subplot(2,2,3) subplot(2,2,4)
150 150

100 100

50 50

Counts
Counts

0 0

−50 −50
−100 0 100 200 300 −100 0 100 200 300
Energy MeV Energy MeV

FIG. 5: For very large plots where important detail might be lost if too compressed, it can be convenient to use the ‘turnpage’ environment for displaying in landscape
mode. e.g., any experiment where a data set is acquired at several angular positions (21cm, e/m, Rutherford) or is time varying (Physics of Alpha Decay and Pulsed
NMR.) These full page graphics are usually best kept in appendices so as not to impede the flow of the paper. Note that large tables can also be presented in this
landscape environment if desired