How To Write A Lab Report | Step-by-Step Guide &

Examples

Published on May 20, 2021 by Pritha Bhandari. Revised on July 15, 2022.

A lab report conveys the aim, methods, results, and conclusions of a scientific
experiment.
The main purpose of a lab report is to demonstrate your understanding of the
scientific method by performing and evaluating a hands-on lab experiment. This
type of assignment is usually shorter than a research paper.

Lab reports are commonly used in science, technology, engineering, and

mathematics (STEM) fields. This article focuses on how to structure and write a
lab report.
:
Structuring a lab report
The sections of a lab report can vary between scientific fields and course
requirements, but they usually contain the purpose, methods, and findings of a lab
experiment.

Each section of a lab report has its own purpose.

Title: expresses the topic of your study

Abstract: summarizes your research aims, methods, results, and conclusions
Introduction: establishes the context needed to understand the topic
Method: describes the materials and procedures used in the experiment
Results: reports all descriptive and inferential statistical analyses
Discussion: interprets and evaluates results and identifies limitations
Conclusion: sums up the main findings of your experiment
References: list of all sources cited using a specific style (e.g. APA)
Appendices: contains lengthy materials, procedures, tables or figures

Although most lab reports contain these sections, some sections can be omitted
or combined with others. For example, some lab reports contain a brief section on
research aims instead of an introduction, and a separate conclusion is not always
required.

If you’re not sure, it’s best to check your lab report requirements with your
instructor.

Title
Your title provides the first impression of your lab report – effective titles
communicate the topic and/or the findings of your study in specific terms.

Create a title that directly conveys the main focus or purpose of your study. It
doesn’t need to be creative or thought-provoking, but it should be informative.

Title examples
:
 The effects of varying nitrogen levels on tomato plant height.
Testing the universality of the McGurk effect.
Comparing the viscosity of common liquids found in kitchens.

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Abstract
An abstract condenses a lab report into a brief overview of about 150–300 words.
It should provide readers with a compact version of the research aims, the
methods and materials used, the main results, and the final conclusion.

Think of it as a way of giving readers a preview of your full lab report. Write the
abstract last, in the past tense, after you’ve drafted all the other sections of your
report, so you’ll be able to succinctly summarize each section.

To write a lab report abstract, use these guiding questions:

 What is the wider context of your study?

 What research question were you trying to answer?
 How did you perform the experiment?
 What did your results show?
:
  How did you interpret your results?
 What is the importance of your findings?

Example: Abstract

Nitrogen is a necessary nutrient for high quality plants. Tomatoes, one of the
most consumed fruits worldwide, rely on nitrogen for healthy leaves and stems
to grow fruit. This experiment tested whether nitrogen levels affected tomato
plant height in a controlled setting. It was expected that higher levels of
nitrogen fertilizer would yield taller tomato plants.

Levels of nitrogen fertilizer were varied between three groups of tomato plants.
The control group did not receive any nitrogen fertilizer, while one
experimental group received low levels of nitrogen fertilizer, and a second
experimental group received high levels of nitrogen fertilizer. All plants were
grown from seeds, and heights were measured 50 days into the experiment.

The effects of nitrogen levels on plant height were tested between groups using
an ANOVA. The plants with the highest level of nitrogen fertilizer were the
tallest, while the plants with low levels of nitrogen exceeded the control group
plants in height. In line with expectations and previous findings, the effects of
nitrogen levels on plant height were statistically significant. This study
strengthens the importance of nitrogen for tomato plants.

Introduction
Your lab report introduction should set the scene for your experiment. One way to
write your introduction is with a funnel (an inverted triangle) structure:

 Start with the broad, general research topic

 Narrow your topic down your specific study focus
 End with a clear research question
:
Begin by providing background information on your research topic and explaining
why it’s important in a broad real-world or theoretical context. Describe relevant
previous research on your topic and note how your study may confirm it or expand
it, or fill a gap in the research field.

Example: Referring to previous research

This lab experiment builds on previous research from Haque, Paul, and Sarker
(2011), who demonstrated that tomato plant yield increased at higher levels of
nitrogen. However, the present research focuses on plant height as a growth
indicator and uses a lab-controlled setting instead.

Next, go into detail on the theoretical basis for your study and describe any
directly relevant laws or equations that you’ll be using. State your main research
aims and expectations by outlining your hypotheses.

Example: Stating your hypothesis

Based on the importance of nitrogen for tomato plants, the primary hypothesis
was that the plants with the high levels of nitrogen would grow the tallest. The
secondary hypothesis was that plants with low levels of nitrogen would grow
taller than plants with no nitrogen.

Your introduction doesn’t need to be long, but you may need to organize it into a
few paragraphs or with subheadings such as “Research Context” or “Research
Aims.”

Method
:
A lab report Method section details the steps you took to gather and analyze data.
Give enough detail so that others can follow or evaluate your procedures. Write
this section in the past tense. If you need to include any long lists of procedural
steps or materials, place them in the Appendices section but refer to them in the
text here.

You should describe your experimental design, your subjects, materials, and
specific procedures used for data collection and analysis.

Experimental design
Briefly note whether your experiment is a within-subjects or between-subjects
design, and describe how your sample units were assigned to conditions if
relevant.

Example: Experimental design

A between-subjects design with three groups of tomato plants was used. The
control group did not receive any nitrogen fertilizer. The first experimental
group received a low level of nitrogen fertilizer, while the second experimental
group received a high level of nitrogen fertilizer.

Subjects
Describe human subjects in terms of demographic characteristics, and animal or
plant subjects in terms of genetic background. Note the total number of subjects
as well as the number of subjects per condition or per group. You should also
state how you recruited subjects for your study.

Materials
List the equipment or materials you used to gather data and state the model
names for any specialized equipment.

Example: Materials
:
 List of materials

35 Tomato seeds

Soil

15 plant pots (15 cm tall)

Water

Light lamps (50,000 lux)

Nitrogen fertilizer

Measuring tape

Describe your experimental settings and conditions in detail. You can provide
labelled diagrams or images of the exact set-up necessary for experimental
equipment. State how extraneous variables were controlled through restriction or
by fixing them at a certain level (e.g., keeping the lab at room temperature).

Example: Experimental settings

Light levels were fixed throughout the experiment, and the plants were exposed
to 12 hours of light a day. Temperature was restricted to between 23 and 25℃.
The pH and carbon levels of the soil were also held constant throughout the
experiment as these variables could influence plant height. The plants were
grown in rooms free of insects or other pests, and they were spaced out
adequately.

Procedures
:
Your experimental procedure should describe the exact steps you took to gather
data in chronological order. You’ll need to provide enough information so that
someone else can replicate your procedure, but you should also be concise. Place
detailed information in the appendices where appropriate.

In a lab experiment, you’ll often closely follow a lab manual to gather data. Some
instructors will allow you to simply reference the manual and state whether you
changed any steps based on practical considerations. Other instructors may want
you to rewrite the lab manual procedures as complete sentences in coherent
paragraphs, while noting any changes to the steps that you applied in practice.

If you’re performing extensive data analysis, be sure to state your planned analysis
methods as well. This includes the types of tests you’ll perform and any programs
or software you’ll use for calculations (if relevant).

Example: Procedures

First, tomato seeds were sown in wooden flats containing soil about 2 cm below
the
 surface.
Table ofEach seed was kept 3-5 cm apart. The flats were covered to keep
contents
the soil moist until germination. The seedlings were removed and transplanted
to pots 8 days later, with a maximum of 2 plants to a pot. Each pot was watered
once a day to keep the soil moist. Proofreading & Editing

The nitrogen fertilizer treatment was applied toPlagiarism

the plant pots 12 days after
Checker
transplantation. The control group received no treatment, while the first
experimental group received a low concentration,Citation Tools experimental
and the second
group received a high concentration. There were 5 pots in each group, and each
Knowledge
plant pot was labelled to indicate the group the plants belonged Base
to.

50 days after the start of the experiment, plant height was measured for all
plants. A measuring tape was used to record the length of the plant from
ground level to the top of the tallest leaf.
:
Results
In your results section, you should report the results of any statistical analysis
procedures that you undertook. You should clearlyFAQ
state how the results of
statistical tests support or refute your initial hypotheses.
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The main results to report include:

any descriptive statistics

statistical test results
the significance of the test results
estimates of standard error or confidence intervals

Example: Results

The mean heights of the plants in the control group, low nitrogen group, and
high nitrogen groups were 20.3, 25.1, and 29.6 cm respectively. A one-way
ANOVA was applied to calculate the effect of nitrogen fertilizer level on plant
height. The results demonstrated statistically significant (p = .03) height
differences between groups.

Next, post-hoc tests were performed to assess the primary and secondary
hypotheses. In support of the primary hypothesis, the high nitrogen group
plants were significantly taller than the low nitrogen group and the control
group plants. Similarly, the results supported the secondary hypothesis: the
low nitrogen plants were taller than the control group plants.

These results can be reported in the text or in tables and figures. Use text for
highlighting a few key results, but present large sets of numbers in tables, or show
relationships between variables with graphs.
:
You should also include sample calculations in the Results section for complex
experiments. For each sample calculation, provide a brief description of what it
does and use clear symbols. Present your raw data in the Appendices section and
refer to it to highlight any outliers or trends.

Discussion
The Discussion section will help demonstrate your understanding of the
experimental process and your critical thinking skills.

In this section, you can:

Interpret your results

Compare your findings with your expectations
Identify any sources of experimental error
Explain any unexpected results
Suggest possible improvements for further studies

Interpreting your results involves clarifying how your results help you answer your
main research question. Report whether your results support your hypotheses.

Did you measure what you sought out to measure?

Were your analysis procedures appropriate for this type of data?

Compare your findings with other research and explain any key differences in
findings.

Are your results in line with those from previous studies or your classmates’
results? Why or why not?

An effective Discussion section will also highlight the strengths and limitations of a
study.

Did you have high internal validity or reliability?

How did you establish these aspects of your study?
:
When describing limitations, use specific examples. For example, if random error
contributed substantially to the measurements in your study, state the particular
sources of error (e.g., imprecise apparatus) and explain ways to improve them.

Example: Discussion

The results support the hypothesis that nitrogen levels affect plant height, with
increasing levels producing taller plants. These statistically significant results
are taken together with previous research to support the importance of
nitrogen as a nutrient for tomato plant growth.

However, unlike previous studies, this study focused on plant height as an

indicator of plant growth in the present experiment. Importantly, plant height
may not always reflect plant health or fruit yield, so measuring other indicators
would have strengthened the study findings.

Another limitation of the study is the plant height measurement technique, as

the measuring tape was not suitable for plants with extreme curvature. Future
studies may focus on measuring plant height in different ways.

The main strengths of this study were the controls for extraneous variables,
such as pH and carbon levels of the soil. All other factors that could affect plant
height were tightly controlled to isolate the effects of nitrogen levels, resulting
in high internal validity for this study.

Conclusion
Your conclusion should be the final section of your lab report. Here, you’ll
summarize the findings of your experiment, with a brief overview of the strengths
and limitations, and implications of your study for further research.

Some lab reports may omit a Conclusion section because it overlaps with the
Discussion section, but you should check with your instructor before doing so.
:
Frequently asked questions about lab reports

What is a lab report? 

What’s the difference between a lab report and a research paper? 

What are the sections of a lab report? 

What’s the difference between results and discussion? 

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 Pritha Bhandari
Pritha has an academic background in English, psychology and cognitive
neuroscience. As an interdisciplinary researcher, she enjoys writing articles
explaining tricky research concepts for students and academics.

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