Typical Structure Of A Lab Report

ME260W Lab Report Preparation Guidelines Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Connecticut Storrs, Connecticut

Past experience shows that even the best students often do not present a well-written, clear lab report which is a significant input towards their final grades in this course. The weighting factor of the lab reports is 50%, greater than that of the exams. It is very important to make an extra effort to document your report in a meaningful format. The following is a guide for the students to prepare their lab reports.

1. Your report must be prepared using a word processor such as Microsoft Office Word or equivalent. Handwritten reports and/or handwritten sections in the report are not acceptable.

2. Your report must starts with a cover/title page following the format of the sample cover page provided on the course website.

3. Your report must be in grammatically correct English with due attention paid to writing style recommended by the ASME Author’s Kit.

4. Basic format requirements are listed below. Any deviation will result in grade deduction. a. No more than 12 pages (excluding cover page and Appendices). b. Use 1.5 line spacing. c. Use 12pt font, Times New Roman or Arial type face are recommended. d. Use 25 mm (1”) margins all the around each page. e. Page must be numbered; the page follows the cover page should be numbered Page 1. f. Figure must include a caption placed right below the figure; figure caption should be self-explained; figures must be placed in the text, numbered consecutively. g. Tables must include a caption placed right above the table; tables must be placed in the text, numbered consecutively. h. Equations must be numbered consecutively; equation numbers must flush either left or right. i. References must be placed after main text and before the appendix; references must be numbered consecutively and the style follow those recommended in ASME author’s kit. j. In text citations, figures, tables, references, or equations must be cited in the correct numbers. k. All calculation, tabulation, derivation, etc., must be conducted in SI units; English unit is acceptable only when SI translations are provided.

5. Use of headings and subheadings are required throughout the report to have logical parts. The following section structure is recommended:

Cover Page

Provide report title, course number and name, author's name, instructor's name, and date Abstract (less than ¾ of a page)  Must be in paragraph format  Do NOT rewrite the objectives from the lab handouts Focus on highlights only. Bring the crux of the topic and the solution to attention. An abstract is a very critical part of a report. The purpose of this section is to outline the methodology and the important conclusions resulting from the lab. This should be accomplished using a very minimum of words. Many people read only the abstract to determine whether or not the report should be read in detail. Do not slight the work you have done by presenting an inadequate abstract.

Table of Contents

Nomenclature

Introduction (one page minimum) a. Provide background information that is essential to your lab; any irrelevant information should not be included; b. Acknowledge the existing knowledge supporting your work; use reference citations; c. Clearly provide an objective statement for the experiment to be conducted; d. Brief overall view of what your report will include;

Theory The theory behind the lab experiment should be described (i.e., physical and/or mechanical concepts). Appropriate formulae should be presented to substantiate any concepts previously mentioned. If necessary, diagrams may be drawn to help explain concepts.

Experimental Setup and Procedures (one page minimum) This section should include figures and/or block diagrams of the experimental setup whenever possible. It should explain the experimental apparatus, the measurements taken, the accuracy of these measurements, and extraneous inputs that might influence the experiment. The techniques used in taking measurements should be explained. It should describe the process rather than give step-by-step procedures. Write in paragraphs (please do not copy from your handout).

Results and Discussion (two pages minimum) Experimental results are presented in this section. Based on the knowledge you learned so far, a discussion should be provided in this section to justify the results obtained both theoretically and experimentally. The experimental and theoretical results should be compared with each other. Experimental errors should be analyzed. Any agreement or disagreement among the results should be discussed, and the reasons for the agreement and/or disagreement should be provided in terms of physics, mechanics, or other scientific concepts. If you put a graph in the Results section, explain/discuss it. If a graph has nothing to be explained or discussed, it should probably not be there in your report. Plot data as much as possible (charts are better viewed than tables) and use SI units.

Conclusion (less than ¾ of a page) Any significant results of the experiment should be pointed out in this section. This section includes comparison of theoretical and experimental results (usually in percent difference). Any positive statement concerning the results should be made. (i.e., (a) this experiment correctly represents the physical conditions of the problem; (b) the data collected may be used with an expected error less than _____ percent). This is another section of the report that may be read by many people if the abstract is interesting.

References  Must be present, and be listed and numbered;  All sources where you draw information must be acknowledged in the text;  Use standardized formats suggested in the ASME Author’s Kit.  Must be published information, e.g., books, papers, websites, etc.  People are not references, neither are previous lab reports.

Appendix Include any additional information such as: computer programs, flow charts, equipment descriptions, raw data sheets, sample calculations, lengthy, non-essential derivation or illustration, etc. The complete calculations for at least one set of readings must be shown in detail in an appendix entitled "Sample Calculations".

6. Your report will be graded with following evaluation system:  Overall quality (5%)  Acknowledgment of existing knowledge (5%)  Completeness of reported work (5%)  Correctness of reported work (10%)  Reference & Appendix (5%)  Clarity in writing, figures, tables, etc. (5%)  Report organization (5%)  Theoretical analysis (15%)  Experimentation (15%)  Data interpretation & discussion (10%)  Abstract (10%)  Conclusions (10%)

7. Other remarks  Do not restate whatever is in the handout in your report;  Since your report will be read by other people (mostly outside people), it has to be easily understandable so that an engineer can redo the experiment from your report.