Formal Reports
Formal reports are divided into sections, which have the following distinctive headings:
- Title Page (5 points)
- Summary (10 points)
- Introduction (5 points)
- Theory/Basic Principles (10 points)
- Experimental (10 points)
- Presentation and Discussion of Results (20 points)
- Conclusions and Recommendations (10 points)
- Nomenclature (2.5 points)
- Literature Cited (2.5 points)
- Appendices (5 points)
Overall format of the report (20 points)
Sections 2, 3, and 8 are to begin on new pages. You do need to use these exact headings for your report to guide your audience as to what section they are reading. The following provides some guidance to the content of the various sections. These are not meant to be absolute, but are common in practice.
Title page
The title page clearly identifies the nature of the report and who performed the work. Choose a descriptive title. For example, “Effect of Pump Configuration on Flow of Water Through a Piping System” is better than simply, “Pumps and Piping Lab Report”. The date of the report submission should be included on this page. Write out your names (take credit for your work).
Summary
The summary is intended to completely, yet briefly, inform the reader of the basic nature and major implications as a one-page report on the major aspects of the work. This section must be one full page. This section should briefly state what was done and how, what the principle results were, the major conclusions that were drawn, and the significance of the work. It should be able to stand ALONE. References to other parts of the report should not be used in the summary. In a professional setting, the summary would be used to determine if the report was worth reading in its entirety.
Introduction
The summary in intended to stand alone; the main body of the report should have an introduction as if the summary were not included. The introduction should briefly reveal the scope and relevance of the investigation, and broadly what techniques were used. Your introduction should be tied-in with your conclusion; keep this in mind when writing. No mention of the results or conclusions will appear here as these will be later discussed.
Theory and Basic Principles
A discussion of the theory or basic principles involved with this project is appropriate to include. Assume your reader is technically proficient, but not necessarily acquainted with the specific background of your work. This section should provide enough detail so that the reader will understand the basis for the laboratory work and the analysis of the data. For example, the reader will know what a heat transfer coefficient is, but you will need to explain how it relates to your experiment. Use equations when needed and define the symbols. Use references for your equations and state conditions at which they are valid.
Experimental
Use this section to explain the experimental equipment and procedures. Explain major items using computer drawn renderings of the equipment or process to help the reader visualize the experiment. If a sketch is required, it must be drawn using software on a computer. Often flow sheets or line drawings are sufficient. Do not get too bogged down in exhaustive detail for familiar procedures. For example, indicating that “Product concentration was determined by titrating samples from the reactor with standard acid” is a sufficient description. You don’t need to say that a 10 mL sample was taken and placed in a 250 mL Erlenmeyer flask then titrated with 0.05N HCl using Bromothymol blue as the indicator. However, be sensitive to the fact that in certain instances procedural details form a key part of the information to be conveyed in the report. In most instances, give general run down of what was performed, what was measured, and in what sequence. Highlight the important procedural items. Aspects such as how many runs were made, how conditions were varied, what ranges of variables were investigated, etc. are of interest in this section. Do not write as a step-by-step account.
Presentation and Discussion of Results
This section is the heart ♥ of the report; the place where you demonstrate the value of what you have done, including your awareness of the implications of the work.
The “Presentation” aspect refers to the display of results in text, graphical, tabular, or other form. “Discussion” refers to a written assessment of the significance of the results. In presenting results, choose the form that is most effective and allows the reader to grasp the nature of the results quickly and accurately. Look at textbooks, journals, or scientific writing for examples. Graphs are often preferred because they more readily convey the analyzed information to your reader. A trend is more quickly spotted in a graph rather than in a table. In your text, introduce the graph or table you wish to discuss. For example: “Figure 1 displays the effect of carrier gas flow rate on the retention times for benzene and acetone.” Then discuss the major features of the figure – are the trends as expected, do the results agree with theory or with data of other investigators, etc. After sufficient elaboration, move on to the next figure or table. In some cases, you may wish to present and discuss two or three closely related tables or figures together. Use appropriate significant figures (SigFigs) in presenting numerical results. At the end of the section, a discussion of the results taken collectively is often appropriate.
When discussing results, assess them realistically. Do not force your data to fit the theory. Examine sources of experimental error critically and discuss these if they affect the results significantly. Were the assumptions made in developing theory fulfilled experimentally? If not, assess the effect this would have on agreement of experimental result and theory. If data scatter is so great that no correlation is possible, include this finding in your report. But also try to determine why the data scatters. Do not develop unwarranted conclusions based on pre-conceived notions of what the results should be. On the other hand, if your data is good, or the results reveal important phenomena, or agreement with the theory is excellent; highlight your success.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Major conclusions drawn from the experiment can be listed (1, 2, 3, etc.) following a simple introductory statement. A well written conclusion will tie in with the introduction. Alternately, a conventional narrative style may be used. A list of recommendations for experimental alternatives should be included.
Nomenclature
In the nomenclature section, symbols used in the report are defined. These are listed alphabetically, Latin letters first, followed by Greek symbols and subscripts and superscripts. Units are provided for the convenience of the reader.
Nomenclature Example:
AC cross sectional area [m2]
AS surface area [m2]
Re Reynolds number [-]
tR retention time [s]
m viscosity [kg/m•s]
r density [mg/mL]
Literature Cited
References to the literature should be cited in the body of the report using a the author last name and year of publication enclosed in parentheses. In this case, the references should be listed alphabetically within the Literature Cited. Refer to the section on References and Citations for additional guidance.
Appendices
Long derivations and/or other background material that is not essential to the body of the report should be placed in an appendix. The essentials are placed in the body and the reader referred to the appendix for details. Tables of data and calibration curves usually are place in an appendix, as in a sample calculation, which illustrates how the raw data were used to obtain the final results. The appendices are given descriptive headings to separate different types of material. The entirety of your data tables should NOT be included in the appendix. If your data is earth shatteringly brilliant, we will seek out your full data tables.