HOW TO WRITE A BIOLOGY LABORATORY REPORT

Student reports are an important part of the laboratory experience. They give students an opportunity to report their findings in a concise format similar to what is used by research scientists in scholarly journals. Biology lab reports have the following sections (each with a specific function): Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion/Conclusion and Literature Cited. Address each numbered point under the following headings in sequence, but do not include the numbers in your writing.

Title

1. Good titles describe the contents of the project clearly and precisely

2. Avoid phrases such as "studies on," "an investigation of"

Abstract

3. Summarize in one paragraph the project (rationale, questions and hypotheses, methods, results, conclusions) (See separate link on how to write an abstract for more detail.)

Introduction

4. What problem or principle are you investigating?

5. What background information is relevant to the project?

6. Why was your experimental organism a good choice for investigation?

7. What is your researchable question?

8. State the hypothesis you are testing with this investigation.

Methods

9. Describe what materials, subjects, and equipment (chemicals, experimental animals, apparatus, etc.) you used.

10. Explain the steps you took in your experiment.
(These may be sub-headed by experiment, types of assay, etc.)

11. Describe the statistical method you used to analyze the data (if any).

12. Emphasize methods unique to your project.

Results

13. Present the results of each experiment in the form of sequentially numbered and labeled figures and/or tables (use a journal format of your choice).

14. Emphasize the main points of each table and/or figure with appropriate narrative descriptions.

15. As much as possible, use numerical terms to describe your results (e.g., the experimental group showed a 50% increase in growth rate when compared with the control group, not the experimental group was larger than the control.) Include statistical data to show that treatments were significantly different from controls (p value) or the goodness of fit, if a regression analysis was done (r or r² value).

16. Avoid including comments about the efficacy or relevance of the results; save that for the discussion/conclusion.

Discussion/Conclusion

17. Summarize the most important findings at the beginning and specifically state if the hypothesis (or hypotheses) were supported by the data.

18. Compare the outcomes of this project and the background information mentioned in the introduction. Do your results agree, contradict, or are they exceptions to the rule? Explain.

19. What new RQ’s or hypotheses come to mind as an outcome of this experiment? For example, extend your findings to other situations or other species.

20. If you were to do this experiment again, what would you do differently that might resolve contradictions or explain exceptions.

Literature Cited

21. Use a journal article format of your choice.

22. Do not cite any references that you have not read.

23. Make sure to cite any paper at that point in the text where it is used.