Lab Report Guide

Dorothy Gan
Written: 01/27/2025
Last Edited: 02/21/2025, Dorothy Gan, Mark Ddamulira, Mahmoud Elewa
Last Updated: 02/05/2025

A Few General Comments

1. Please be Concise and Clear à Equations, Tables, and Plots >>> words!!!
2. Significant Figures:
You should always ask yourself whether the number of significant figures you use
makes sense. Suppose the instrument you use to measure a physical quantity has a
precision of 0.001. In that case, it doesn't make sense if the physical quantities you
calculate using measurements from such an instrument exceed 0.001, as that would imply
a greater level of precision than your original measurement.
That said, you should avoid rounding data prematurely, as that would introduce
errors in your analysis. This is not usually a problem since most of the data analysis in
this class is carried out in Excel. However, it's easy to forget to round when one copies
and pastes data from Excel into a lab report, especially when a table is duplicated.
Finally, when rounding numbers, such as converting 4.5695 to four significant
figures, the correct value should be reported as 4.570. It's easy to neglect that 0 in the end
(4.57), but it's crucial for accurately reflecting the measurement's precision (0.001 instead
of 0.01).
3. Units:

You should always include units, and you should always be consistent with them!
In general, you should use SI (International System of Units) units. There is nuance,
however, as sometimes non-SI units can be more intuitive.
4. Data Presentation:
a. Put captions and labels on your figures/tables (example on page 4).
b. Include units in both tables and figures.
5. Calculation Reporting:
a. You don’t have to include explicit calculations, but you should always include the
formulas you use and clarify which numbers you plug into which variables.
b. All formulas that appear outside of the abstract should be numbered for
readability and easy reference (example on page 5).

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 c. Both Google Docs and Microsoft Word allow you to insert equations. For those
who know latex, I found out today that in Word, you can insert latex equations;
for those who wish to learn latex, google "Latex Equation Generator" for a
starting point.
6. Active Voice vs. Passive Voice:
I'm unsure whether the consensus about using active versus passive voice leans
towards which side; I've heard people strongly defending both. I think that using an
active voice makes your point more straightforward. Reading multiple passive sentences
in a row makes me want to bang my head against a wall — something I haven’t done
since I was three. Regardless of my personal feelings, using the passive voice makes your
experiment seem more objective and emphasizes your experiment rather than you, the
researcher.
Arguably, the best practice is to use active voice where possible for clarity but
switch to passive voice when describing standard methods or results where the subject
(researcher) is not the focus. Please don’t make me read more than five passive sentences
in a row, though.
Note: When using the active voice, it’s standard to use “we” instead of “I.”
7. Latex Template For Overleaf Created By The American Physical Society (APS):
https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/revtex-4-dot-2-template-and-
sample/yydsrzvrqrzs;
https://journals.aps.org/revtex
8. Formatting:
Times New Roman in 12-point font size is most common for lab reports. Your lab
report's page length should ideally be around 3-5 pages sans Appendix. It might sound
long, but figures and tables can take up 1-2 pages alone. Appendices are optional; if they
are included, please reference them (example on page 4). Regarding citations, different
journals may have a different style they prefer. For PHY 192 lab reports, I don't care how
you cite [1].
9. Finally, this is just a guide for your report:
You don’t have to strictly organize information in the same format as below, but
it should contain sections that cover roughly the same content. This is a suggestion on
how to rearrange the questions that you’ve answered in your lab guide to a lab report that
concisely and coherently communicates your work. For the Contributions section – we
will automatically doc 2 points if it’s missing.

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 Title of Your Lab Report
Student 1, Student 2

Michigan State University

PHY 192, Spring 2025

Date

Abstract (optional)
Abstracts function as a roadmap for the rest of your lab report. So, they need to be informative,
straightforward, and concise. To craft a good abstract, try to summarize the background (what
does one absolutely need to know to understand my experiment?), purpose (what is the
motivation behind my experiment?), method (how did I conduct my experiment?), and the
results of your experiment in 4-7 sentences.
Note: report physical results as an explicit value bound by an uncertainty level and include
units (___ ± ___ physical unit). The percent error and/or regression results should also be
included depending on the experiment.

Introduction/Theory/Background It’s also nice to include the purpose of your

experiment here but in more detail than in
The length of this section depends on the
your abstract. You can describe the
complexity of your experiment. Regardless,
importance of your experiment and its real-
it should always aim to answer the question:
life applications.
What does my audience need to know to
understand my experiment?
Start with the most basic concepts and Methods
equations. Remember that every equation
Your methods section should contain
included in a lab report should be numbered
information about your experimental design
so that they can be easily referenced in the
and your experimental observations (you
rest of your paper.
can also write them as two separate sections
Sometimes, deciding how deep and detailed instead of two subsections).
this section can be difficult. This is what
Experimental Design
determining your audience would help you
with. In Physics 192, your audience will be Regarding your experimental design, it’s
your classmates and TAs, so aim to explain good to answer the following questions:
concepts at a level we can understand.
1. What data did you take? Why did
you make this choice?

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 2. Did you have to make any a picture says a thousand words. Don’t be
approximations or assumptions, and afraid to be creative either – Figure 1 was
if so, what? What are some potential drawn in google slides, and Figure 2 is a
sources of errors/uncertainties? What very crappy stick figure drawn on paper.
kind of errors are they?
In this section, you may or may not also
3. How did you take your data? What
need to derive calculations from physics
kind of instruments did you use?
principles, depending on whether any
Which variable was varied, and
equations influenced your decision on your
which is kept constant?
experimental design. Note: remember to
When you can, it’s always a good idea to use label and reference equations.
pictures to describe your experimental setup,
Experimental Observations
like so:
Naturally, you now need to describe your
experimental observations: what you noticed
during your experiment; was it expected or
unexpected? Before conducting your
experiment, you should always have a
research question and hypothesis – this is a
good place to compare your hypothesis with
your observations (explaining the
differences, if any, might be better suited for
the discussion section).

Figure 1. An example from a lab report I did in my

You may choose to include your raw,
Modern Physics lab. In Microsoft Word, you can add unprocessed data as a table here. However,
captions by double-clicking on the picture and then
if the table is too long, it may be a good idea
Insert Caption. I have not yet discovered if Google Docs
has a similar function, but please let me know if you do. to move it to your Appendix and reference it
here (see Appendix A).
You might also need to include a summary
table, scatter plot, figure, or bar chart that
describes your data. Or, if you deem it better
to communicate your results, you can also
include them in the next section:
Experimental/Data Analysis. Note: your
summary table should include averages and
Figure 2: An example from my first lab report that uncertainties calculated from associated
perfectly demonstrates the pain of doing physics labs standard deviations if multiple trials are
online during covid.
taken. If applicable, remember to include the
You can draw a simple block diagram or equation and specify N:
take a picture of your apparatus. Either way,

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 !!
δ𝑋 = (1) may not be applicable, but error
√#
propagation, relative uncertainty and percent
If this is the section where you chose to error will almost always be. If you wish, feel
display your data (rather than the next free to use tables here to describe and/or
section), then you should also include a compare your results concisely! You should
short discussion of the uncertainties also interpret your results here. You may
associated with your tools/instruments. If also discuss your errors and/or uncertainties
this is the section where you chose to here.
display your data (rather than the next
section), you should also include a
discussion of the uncertainties associated Conclusion/Discussion
with your tools/instruments. Since there are
no strict rules to writing, you may also Note: some people prefer the section title
discuss this somewhere else that makes “Discussion” over “Conclusion” because it
sense, such as your apparatus description in sounds more inviting.
the Experimental Design subsection. Here, you may concisely summarize the
entire lab. However, since the abstract is
already a concise summary, I prefer to
Experimental/Data Analysis comment on the potential sources of my
You guessed it – in this section, you should percent error in this section (you may do
show how you’ve processed your data. If whatever you wish so long it makes sense).
you haven’t included any figures, tables, This section could also benefit from a quick
discussion of how one could make the
charts, or plots of your data yet, please place
them here. Please also include a discussion experiment better, either in terms of ease of
of uncertainties as well, if you haven’t done data collection or reducing uncertainties and
so yet. If you have, then move on to your errors.
derivation-based uncertainties (error
propagation), regression-based errors
(regression error), and comparison-based Contributions (required)
uncertainties and errors (relative uncertainty Please list your name and the sections
and percent error). Regression error may or you’ve completed here.

References (optional)
[1] You may cite however you like, including just copying and pasting the link of a website.
[2] You can skip the references section and just use end notes or foot notes.

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 Appendix A (extremely optional, not worth wasting time on)
If a table is, say, more than one entire page long, either don’t include it in the report or move it to
the Appendix.

Appendix B (extremely optional, not worth wasting time on)

You can have multiple Appendices and use them to dump semi-important information such as
explicit calculations or extra graphs.