FORMAT:

Cover page : Arial, Font 16, 1.5 spacing

Items : Arial, Font 12, 1.5 spacing

COVER PAGE:

Title of the Experiment :

Date of the Lab. Experiment :
Lab Room :
Lecturer & Technician Name :
Group :
Student Name & ID :

STRUCTURE:

1. Introduction
2. Aim/Objectives
3. Materials & Equipment
4. Procedure
5. Results (Data)
6. Discussion (Analysis / Calculation)
7. Conclusion
8. References
9. Appendices

*Important:
Item No. 7: Conclusion is INDIVIDUAL task. This needs to be compiled
in the lab report together with all items.
Please put your name and ID on the conclusion statement.
COVER PAGE

Title of the Experiment : Lab 1 - Shear Force

Date of the Lab. Experiment : 01/05/2013
Lab Room : Room 0014, UniKL IPROM

Lecturer & Technician Name : (Lecturers name)

(Technicians name)
Group : ES_B01
Student Name & ID :

Dr Norhairin Mohd Saad Page 2 of 7

1. INTRODUCTION (between 150 200 words/ 1-2 paragraph)

The introduction defines the subject of the report. It must outline the scientific
purpose(s) or objective(s) for the research performed and give the reader sufficient
background to understand the rest of the report. Care should be taken to limit the
background to whatever is pertinent to the experiment.
The function of the Introduction is to:

Establish the context of the work being reported. This is accomplished by

discussing the relevant primary research literature (with citations) and
summarizing our current understanding of the problem you are investigating;
State the purpose of the work in the form of the hypothesis, question, or
problem you investigated; and,
Briefly explain your rationale and approach and, whenever possible, the
possible outcomes your study can reveal.

Quite literally, the Introduction must answer the questions, "What was I studying? Why
was it an important question? What did we know about it before I did this study? How
will this study advance our knowledge?" Use the active voice as much as possible. Its
optimum length will vary somewhat with the nature and extent of the paper, but it should
not exceed 200 words.

2. AIM AND OBJECTIVES

Identify the aim and main objective(s) of the experiment. You should be able to cover
this section in one brief paragraph, i.e. two or three well written sentences. You may
paraphrase statements found in lab handouts but do not copy them.

3. MATERIALS & EQUIPMENT

As the name implies, the materials and methods used in the experiments should be
reported in this section. The difficulty in writing this section is to provide enough detail

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for the reader to understand the experiment without overwhelming him or her. When
procedures from a lab book or another report are followed exactly, simply cite the work,
noting that details can be found in that particular source. However, it is still necessary to
describe special pieces of equipment and the general theory of the assays used. This
can usually be done in a short paragraph, possibly along with a drawing of the
experimental apparatus. Generally, this section attempts to answer the following
questions:
What materials were used?
How were they used?
Where and when was the work done? (This question is most important in
field studies.)

4. PROCEDURES

The "Procedures," often called the "Methods," discusses how the experiment occurred.
Documenting the procedures of your laboratory experiment is important not only so that
others can repeat your results but also so that you can replicate the work later, if the
need arises.

5. RESULTS/ DATA

The results section should summarize the data from the experiments without discussing
their implications. The data should be organized into tables, figures, graphs,
photographs, and so on. But data included in a table should not be duplicated in a figure
or graph. All figures and tables should have descriptive titles and should include a
legend explaining any symbols, abbreviations, or special methods used. Figures and
tables should be numbered separately and should be referred to in the text by number,
for example:

Figure 1 shows that the activity decreased after five minutes.

The activity decreased after five minutes (fig. 1).

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 Figures caption must be written at the lower, centred of the figure.
Tables caption must be written at the top, left corner of the table.

Figures and tables should be self-explanatory; that is, the reader should be able to
understand them without referring to the text. All columns and rows in tables and axes
in figures should be labelled.

6. DISCUSSION (ANALYSIS/CALCULATION) (between 200 250 words/1-2

paragraph)

This section should not just be a restatement of the results but should emphasize
interpretation of the data, relating them to existing theory and knowledge. The function
of the Discussion is to interpret your results in light of what was already known about
the subject of the investigation, and to explain our new understanding of the problem
after taking your results into consideration. The Discussion will always connect to the
Introduction by way of the question(s) or hypotheses you posed and the literature you
cited, but it does not simply repeat or rearrange the Introduction. Instead, it tells how
your study has moved us forward from the place you left us at the end of the
Introduction. Fundamental questions to answer here include:

Do your results provide answers to your testable hypotheses? If so, how do

you interpret your findings?
Do your findings agree with what others have shown? If not, do they suggest
an alternative explanation or perhaps an unforeseen design flaw in your
experiment (or theirs?)
Given your conclusions, what is our new understanding of the problem you
investigated and outlined in the Introduction?
If warranted, what would be the next step in your study, e.g., what
experiments would you do next?

Dr Norhairin Mohd Saad Page 5 of 7

7. CONCLUSIONS (INDIVIDUALLY/between 150 200 words/ 1-2 paragraph)

In longer laboratory reports, a "Conclusion" section often appears. Whereas the

"Results and Discussion" section has discussed the results individually, the
"Conclusion" section discusses the results in the context of the entire experiment.
Usually, the objectives mentioned in the "Introduction" are examined to determine
whether the experiment succeeded. If the objectives were not met, you should analyse
why the results were not as predicted.

Use elements from the introduction in the conclusion. Their structure must be
similar. If you are having difficulty writing the conclusion, re-read the
introduction for ideas about what to write.
Discuss whether or not the results supported your hypothesis. If they did not,
discuss why not.
Suggest biases that may have affected the experimental design. Discuss
how they can be eliminated in the future. Discuss the possibility of using a
different methodology or design.
Write about how the experiment can be improved in future replications.
Discuss the significance of the experiment, if it resulted in the creation of new
knowledge, added support to a recently developed theory or aided in the
formulation of new questions to be researched. Consider also that the
experiment may have been a complete waste of time.

8. REFERENCES

This section lists all articles or books cited in your report. It is not the same as a
bibliography, which simply lists references regardless of whether they were cited in the
paper. The listing should be alphabetized by the last names of the authors. When citing
references in the text, do not use footnotes; instead, refer to articles by the author's
name and the date the paper was published. For example:

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 Fox in 1988 investigated the hormones on the nest-building behavior of
catbirds.
Hormones are known to influence the nest-building behavior of catbirds (Fox,
1988).

When citing papers that have two authors, both names must be listed. When three or
more authors are involved, the Latin et al. (et alia) meaning "and others" may be used.
A paper by Smith, Lynch, Merrill, and Beam published in 1989 would be cited in the text
as: Smith et al. (1989) have shown that...
This short form is for text use only. In the Literature Cited, all names would be listed,
usually last name preceding initials. There are a number of style manuals that provide
detailed directions for writing scientific papers. Some are listed in further readings at the
end of this section.

All citation entries are listed in alphabetical order based the first author's last
name;
If the same author(s) are cited for more than one paper having the same
order of authors' names, the papers should be listed in chronological
sequence by year of publication.
Authors' names MUST be listed in the citation in the same order as in the
article.

9. APPENDICES

In a laboratory report, appendices often are included. One type of appendix that
appears in laboratory reports presents information that is too detailed to be placed into
the report's text. For example, if you had a long table giving voltage-current
measurements for an RLC circuit, you might place this tabular information in an
appendix and include a graph of the data in the report's text. Another type of appendix
that often appears in laboratory reports presents pictures of the people (team) and
equipment/machine which have been clarified in the report.

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