Graduate Certificate in Science and Technology (Lighting)

Writing Lab Reports

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Introduction Lab reports consist of the following main sections: Cover Sheet, Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, References and Appendices (if appropriate). Each section (Abstract, Introduction etc) should be labelled as such. You do not need to start a new page for each item. The exception to this is Appendices, which should each begin on a new page. It is expected that reports will be in the order of around 5 to 10 pages, excluding the cover page. Of this, approximately one to two pages should be your introduction, depending on the topic. A contents page is not required. Be careful to read the lab sheet thoroughly and include every calculation and graph that is asked for.

Style & Presentation You can assume that the reader is a professional person with some general knowledge of the subject area. You should write in a professional manner, with accurate grammar, spelling and punctuation. All sentences should be complete and make sense. Lab reports should be written in a factual way. This means that you should avoid superlatives (The results were fantastic.) or expressing your feelings (I was pleased...). You should generally write in the past tense, as you are describing what you did (The equipment was set up...). Occasionally you may need to use the present tense. This should be used for referring to parts of the report (as can be seen in Figure 2...) or conclusions (In conclusion, voltage appears to affect the...). Your work should be neat and easy to read, however you will not lose marks if your report is not typed. Neat handwritten calculations, diagrams and graphs etc are acceptable, but must be scanned and included so that the report is one document.

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Submission Please submit your labs as one PDF file and give every page a number and your name. Note that PDF files are the only form of submission that will be accepted.

Plagiarism & Collusion Note that laboratory reports must be your own work. Copying from another source such as a book or website without acknowledgement (i.e. plagiarism) is not acceptable. If you use some material from sources such as textbooks, you must refer to these publications in your report. This includes a citation in the body of the report, and a reference page at the end which lists of the documents cited. For this course, we have chosen to use APA style referencing. The main Massey website has useful information on this subject. The following link will take you to the main referencing page, which will lead you to further information:http://owll.massey.ac.nz/referencing.php An exception to the plagiarism rule is common knowledge material such as formulas or basic principles that are well established and found in a number of sources. Copying from another student (past or present) is also unacceptable. While you may work together to discuss ideas, your assignments must be your own work. This means that you should not lend your assignment to anyone prior to hand-in. Copying from another student (or allowing your own work to be copied) will result in zero grades for both parties.

Abstract The abstract is a short (one paragraph), self-contained summary of the whole report. You must mention what you are researching, the method, the results and the conclusions. You should build your abstract by looking at the key points made in each main section of the report. The abstract should be able to stand alone, so that it makes sense without having to read any other part of the report except the title. This means that it should not refer to tables, figures or other sections of the report.

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Introduction The purpose of the introduction is to introduce the reader to the topic under investigation. Start with a general overview of the theory that is relevant to your lab. Follow by discussing specific background of the factors that you are investigating. Finish by clearly stating your objectives. This is important, as you will need to refer to your objectives later to analyse whether the experiment was successful or not. Do not merely copy introductory information from the lab sheet. Aside from possible plagiarism issues, the lab sheet is rarely written in a form that is suitable for lab reports. It is expected that the theory section will contain more information than that found in your course handouts. You should refer to the textbook at the very least. Extra references (such as the internet) are desirable.

Method The Method section should give a concise summary which enables an experienced person to replicate your experiment. It should be divided into two sub-sections: Apparatus and Procedure. Apparatus The apparatus section details the equipment required to carry out the lab. You should give brand names and numbers for complicated equipment (e.g., illuminance meter), but not for common equipment (e.g., ruler). Procedure The procedure section should give a succinct chronological summary of the activities and tasks undertaken in the lab. It is expected that you will include labelled diagrams or include photos, which show how the equipment was set up. Always write the procedure in the past tense, and in full sentences. Again, the procedure should not be copied from the lab sheet. Lab sheets are typically written as a set of instructions, and not in the form of a summary that would read well in the procedure section. For example, the lab sheet might say: 1. Connect the apparatus as shown in the connection diagram and adjust the lamp voltage to 250 volts. 2. Take a reading of the lamp current and the intensity of the lamp and enter in the measurement table, columns 2 and 3 respectively.

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3. Using the variac, reduce the lamp voltage in 10 volt steps down to 110V. Record the measurements as given in 2 above for each voltage step and enter in the measurement table, columns 2 and 3 respectively This could be summarised as follows: The equipment was set up as shown in figure 1. Readings of lamp current and intensity were recorded at 250V and at 10V intervals thereafter down to 110V You should also use the procedure section to comment on any difficulties encountered in the experiment, and any special steps that were required to overcome them. For example, you might need to note if there was difficulty with obtaining a stable voltage. Do not mention the procedure that you used to manipulate the raw data into your final results. You should not be saying then we went and did some calculations in the classroom, and I later drew some graphs at home.... These items are covered in the results section.

Results The results tell the reader what you found in the laboratory. An important thing to note is that you should only mention the findings, and not what they mean in relation to the study. Possible explanations for your results should not be covered until the discussion section. When you have a lot of data, it might be easier to show this in tables or graphs. These should be referred to in the text by their numbers (e.g., as can be seen in Table 3). Note that titles should appear at the top of tables, and the bottom of graphs (however, this is sometimes not possible due to the way some computer packages plot graphs). Ensure that graphs have labelled axes (add units if relevant), a legend and a meaningful title. Choose an appropriate scale so that the data is well spread out and the graph fits well on the page. Use graph paper with small squares to aid accuracy. Be wary of using graph software if a line-of-best fit is required. Unless it can provide this function, you should plot the data by hand on graph paper. It should be clear from the tables which items are the raw data, and which were derived. Note that if you obtain the final results by performing calculations, the formula should be given in the results section. For example: Lamp lumens were found by applying the relationship = 4I. Be wary of giving too many decimal places for calculated items. Think about how accurate the data has to be.

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Discussion Your discussion should be devoted to explaining, interpreting and justifying your findings. Analysis of the experimental results and their significance to theory should be presented. It is expected that you would express this in a meaningful way, and say more than merely the results were close to the theory. Be careful not to force your results to look like the theory if they dont. You should instead explore why the results were perhaps different than expected, and discuss the implications of this. In doing this, dont be tempted to make-up explanations for the difference between the results and theory that just arent credible. Rather than having a separate section for conclusions, the last paragraph of your discussion should conclude the report. Use this paragraph to reaffirm your findings and the way they fit the known theory.

References APA requires a references page, which lists every document cited in your report in alphabetical order by the authors last name. Refer to the Massey website for further information:- http://owll.massey.ac.nz/referencing/apa-reference-list.php

Appendices Appendices are occasionally required to present important information that would be too bulky for the main report and interrupt its flow. The most likely example for this course is tables of raw data. Appendices are labelled alphabetically:- Appendix A, Appendix B etc. These should be referred to in the main text (e.g., raw data is presented in Appendix A).

Bibliography Bibliographies list all the sources that you have used (whether cited in the text or not). Note that a bibliography will not be required for your lab reports.

Final Comments Prior to submitting you report, please check that you have included every section listed above. Marks cannot be assigned if information is not provided.

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