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Science writing prizes clarity and concision. The purpose of
your language is to convey, as simply and precisely as
possible, what you did, how you did it, and the significance
of your findings. Scientists write for history – for other
researchers, current and future, who will need and want to
reproduce their results. While metaphors and other kinds of
figurative language might very occasionally help to clarify
a particular point, they can often mislead or distract
readers.
Lab Reports
The lab report is the most common writing assignment in the
sciences. In essence, it’s a student version of a scholarly
article: it contains the same sections, obeys the same
logic, and serves analogous functions. It also provides a
template for the lit. review and the research paper, which
are common assignments in upper-division classes.
Below, we describe the purpose(s) of each section of the lab
report in order. We’ve also included a section of “WF Tips”
for each section. At the end, there’s a list of issues that
vary between the scientific disciplines, and often from
professor to professor. In most cases, professors will let
you know their preferences on these issues, but if they
don’t – ask!
It’s important, in lab reports, to keep the sections
separate: don’t go over materials and methods in Results,
and so on. Some capsule repetition may be necessary for
clarity (for example, you might need to recap your Results
at the beginning of the Discussion). The lab report as a
whole, however, should be unified, presenting a cohesive
argument.
Title
Your title should describe your project and thesis
specifically. It should be clear, so that someone skimming a
series of titles would know enough about your lab report to
decide whether or not to read the whole thing, and as
succinct as possible.
Abstract
Not all lab reports will require an abstract, although most
scientific journal articles do provide them. An abstract
covers all the sections in shorter terms. A reader should be
able to understand your experiment and its significance just
from reading the abstract. It’s typically written after the
rest of the lab report has been completed.
Introduction
The Introduction provides the basic background a reader
needs to understand your experiment. It should lay out how
previous research (or a lack thereof) has led you to this
particular question and explain your results’ potential
significance especially in light of your hypothesis. Write
an introduction so that a reader outside your field can
follow your reasoning and understand your hypothesis and its
significance.
WF TIPS:
- Don’t misidentify the audience! You are writing to a
broad, general set of readers, not exclusively to your
professor.
- Maintain focus! Don’t raise tangential issues. This isn’t
a general survey of the field; it’s the background for your
particular question and hypothesis.
- It’s important to make a clear distinction between
your hypothesis (the mechanism you’re interested in) and
your predictions (the results you expect to see)
- Make sure that you’re writing as clearly as possible. In
particular, present your hypothesis and predictions directly
and explicitly.
- Cite appropriately! Give credit where it’s due.
Materials & Methods
The Materials and Methods section is written for the
specialist in the field. This is where you tell the story of
your experiment as clearly as possibly, describing clearly
and precisely what you did. After reading your Materials and
Methods section, another scientist should be able to
reproduce your experiment; it’s therefore an historical
document, providing a record of the experiment for not only
current but also future researchers. Specify any variations
from a standard protocol (lab manual, etc.) Materials and
Methods can include figures that communicate experimental
design, when those details are more clearly expressed
visually than narratively.
WF TIPS:
- Make sure that if you’re using a procedure or material
that originates from someone else, you cite it.
- Remember to take notes while doing your experiment, so
that you can reconstruct what you did accurately.
- Most figures belong in Results, to communicate findings.
Results
In the Results section, you report your data. Figures and
tables are crucial here, but they don’t speak for
themselves. It’s important to find a middle ground between
simply pointing your readers to the figures without further
explanation and explaining so exhaustively that the figures
become redundant. Like the Materials and Methods, Results is
largely descriptive, telling the story of what you found
without explaining why.
WF TIPS:
- Don’t start your Discussion in your Results! A tiny bit
at the very end of the section is okay to make the
transition, but no more.
Discussion
Why is the task of the Discussion. Here, you analyze the
data, explaining why your results occurred and their
implications; be sure to underscore your most significant
results. You should refer back to your predictions and
hypothesis here, analyzing why the results support (or fail
to support) the hypothesis. In the Discussion, you draw out
the implications of your experiment, raising the next
question(s) to ask, the next experiment(s) to perform, and
so forth. In some disciplines, figures are used in the
Discussion – for example, if your hypothesis leads to a
model that can be displayed visually; in other disciplines,
you simply refer back to figures presented in the Results.
WF TIPS:
- Don’t belabor your points: explain the significance and
then move on.
- Don’t be afraid of negative results. Even in a lab
report, when you’re supposed to be reproducing established
experiments, negative results mean that you should revise
your hypothesis.
- Avoid overly causal or deterministic language; data can
be inconclusive without negating a hypothesis and can
support the hypothesis without definitively determining
causality. (E.g., rather than “X proves Y” use constructions
like, “X suggests that or indicates Y” or “XY correlation
implies that . . .”)
Conclusion
Chemistry typically calls for a separate conclusion, but in
other disciplines the conclusion is often part of the
Discussion. The Conclusion wraps things up; it’s similar to
an abstract in that it provides a succinct overview of the
whole experiment, emphasizing its significant implications.
It’s important for the Conclusion to maintain focus,
highlighting the most important implication of your
experiment.
References
Scientific articles cite references throughout; frequently,
the greatest density of references appears in the
Introduction, but they are also especially important in the
Discussion. There should be a complete list of References at
the end of the lab report. Most science disciplines use a
similar format, and lab manuals typically provide this
information. When in doubt, ask your professor. You can also
look up a scientific journal in the field and model your
reference format on that. (Caution: Science and Nature use
atypical formats.)
Some articles – and therefore some lab reports – include an
Acknowledgements section, separate from the References. This
section acknowledges collaborators and reviewers who do not
appear elsewhere.
Variations – in other words, ask your professor!
- Chemistry lab reports typically include Conclusions; other
disciplines typically fold the Conclusion into the final paragraph(s) of the Discussion.
- In Developmental Biology, Results and Discussion are
combined into a single section.
- Some courses may require an Abstract with a lab report;
many will not.
- Some courses will require you to put all figures at the
end of the document; others will ask you to integrate them
throughout.
- In some courses, you’ll be instructed to simply refer to
the lab manual for your materials and methods.
- The appropriate voice (passive or active) and pronoun
(first person singular, first person plural, etc.) vary
widely from discipline to discipline and professor to
professor. While some professors will ask you to use the
first person singular, active voice (“First I did this . . .
and then I found that . . .”) others will require the plural
(“we”) or the passive (“This was done . . .”). If the
professor doesn’t indicate in the lab manual, make sure you
ask!
Other Science Writing Assignments
Lit. Review
The Lit. Review reviews the scholarly literature on a
particular topic critically. It doesn’t simply provide a
narrative of experiments done, but evaluates the previous
work in an area in order to identify the key questions,
findings, and implications. In a sense, it’s a much-expanded
version of the Introduction to a lab report or scientific
article. Lit. Reviews are guided by questions.
Upper-Level Research Papers
These follow general format of the lab report – which is
also the format of scholarly articles – but are longer
because the questions and experiments involved are more
complex. They typically write up work done more
independently.
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