Alex Guerrero 

English 21007 – Writing for Engineers

Professor Collins

Lab Report Analysis Draft

            Lab reports are important in the line of work of engineers. It is an important trait in which engineers use to share data with their peers according to experiment they conducted. Being assigned two wonderful lab reports, made me realize couple of traits in which make a lab report outstanding and also average. The first lab report is titled “Temperature and Pressure Measurements of an Ideal Gas That is Heated in a Closed Container”.  The reports discuss the relationship of temperature and pressure of an ideal gas when heated in a closed container. This report has many strengths right from the beginning, but it contains a handful of weaknesses. In addition, I got assign a second lab report titled, “Ontogenetic Color Change and Mating Cues in Largus californicus (Hemiptera: Largidae)” written by Carey Booth. This article has the objective to determine if males use color cues in their mating decisions and if their behavior could explain the significance of the ontogenetic color change from fifth instars to adults. This report as well contains strengths and weaknesses that are going to be discussed throughout.

            A title is the first thing readers tend to look at. It is one of the most important things in a lab report because it drives the interest of the readers. Having an informative title lets a reader conclude if the lab report interest them or if it is any use to them. The first lab report does a good job with this because it is clearly presenting its objective in its title. In addition, the second lab report also has a good title, but it is hard to understand for many due to the unknown terminology. I would recommend finding a simpler way of explaining the same idea in other words. It is not a bad title due to the fact it abbreviates its objective. Only thing is that many people would be lost from the start of the title. Finding an adequate title for a lab repot is hard as it seems as it must be short and straight to the point.

            Most of the time the abstract is taken for granted. The truth is that the abstract helps summarize the entire lab report in a short paragraph. It gives readers a more develop idea of what the lab report is all about. At this point most readers can see if the report is for them or not. An abstract is the backbone to the whole lab report as everything develops from there.  The lack of the abstract in the first report causes readers to read on into the introduction just to figure out if this is the report for them. That should not have been an option because an abstract could have saved the reader time. The author should establish an abstract to make his report stronger and more presentable. In the other hand, the second report establishes an outstanding abstract which gets to the key point of the lab report. What makes the abstract of the second report good is the fact it gives background information about terms and ideas in which many readers do not know about yet.  I would suggest for the author to include more things talking about procedures or methods from the lab. The background information is good and all, yet an abstract should establish a well around summary of the whole report. Abstract is one of the many elements which make a lab report shine. 

            An introduction is where the writer should begin to share their ideas, questions, and explaining why their experiment is important. The introduction should involve old reports and how this new lab report is developing further on the findings on that experiment. The first report gave us a brief introduction, which can be improved by adding more information. Like who else has tried this experiment and how their experiment is the same or different. The second report seems to run-off in the introduction which personally is confusing. The thing about a long introduction is that it tends to lose it readers because of the same idea being over-develop. I feel like the introduction could have been simplified into simpler words. One thing that the author did well was cited different types of information in there. Citations alone gave this report an upper-hand in the introduction. Tiny things like that matter when it lets readers understand the material better. 

Materials is the one category that a seems to get mix with procedures. This category is rather serious because it determines if an experiment can be replicable. We cannot conduct a reasonable experiment if the materials are scattered throughout the procedures. This means that the reader would have to make a list on their own, which is poor due to the fact they can miss something by accident. For example, in report 1 there is no material section which makes this report weak because how do people going to know what materials are needed to replicate this experiment. If you read the procedures, then maybe you can figure out some materials. It is not an efficient way to help readers replicate this experiment. Report 2 also did almost the same thing. It did not have a material section, but it does elaborate on which materials it used within the procedures. The thing about helping readers replicate an experiment is that it strengthens the objective. The more data towards an experiment let people conclude a more reasonable conclusion. 

Procedures/ methods is a section that inform readers the steps needed to conduct the experiment efficiently. A lab should have very descriptive procedures because experiment should be able to produce the same results not counting variable errors of course. This ties to the idea that lab reports should be clear and precise so that they can replicable. Without clear instructions the variable for human errors increases as the same results may not be obtain due to lack of instructions. Within the first report the procedures are average in general. They can be more descriptive and more detailed about the steps taken. Furthermore, the second the report has outstanding procedures as they are very descriptive and full of details. For example, “Tests were performed when the bugs are normally active (1300 to 1430 hours) …” The truth is that tiny details like that give readers a sense that the author knows their stuff and what they are talking about. A report that has well develop procedures is a report that can be consider replicable and therefore, even reliable. 

The data collected should be presented in the results section. One big concern I have for both reports is the fact they put the data all the way in the end as in an appendix. There is no wrong with that but as a reader I feel like the data could have been squeezed in between the lab. The data in the end just feels like the reader would have to be turning the pages just to see that the author is talking about. If the data was in between it would be a simple question of searching at the right table or graph.  The data presented are superb as each contain a solid title, subtitle, correct units and very neatly organized. The results speak for themselves as both report’s result show very descriptive analysis of data. The first report explains and evaluate results and even talk about the small errors that could be accounted for. Meanwhile, the second report does the same thing, in evaluating its data clearly. I would suggest adding a bit about errors that could be accounted for to empathize the effectiveness of its data. Results and data help the report be reliable as its supported with strong concrete numbers.

At last the conclusion summarize the whole report once again and its findings. The first report gives a weak conclusion, but its presentable. Meanwhile, the second report does not present a conclusion at all. This is a weak way to end a report as the last summary seals the whole report and concludes it. In addition, a section which says a lot about a report is its references. The first report lacks any references, while the second report has more than enough references. References are valuable as it shows where the report got much of its information or ideas. Without references the report might as well becomes unreliable, because where is much of the information coming from. 

Both lab reports are unique type of work. There can be improvement on both ends to make a more effective lab report. For example, the first report feels like the author did not do much research to gather references for its lab. Also, it is lacking a couple of categories such as the abstract and materials but overall its section get to the point and do their job. For the second report, the main thing that needs fixing is the titles. The titles should outstand from the rest of the work but since the author decided to keep everything the same then its hard to determine where is the title of each section. A solution for this can be to bold each title so they can pop from the rest of the text. A conclusion should definitely be added to finish the report in a good stance and with a good summary. 

To further add on, both labs do an outstanding job creating new knowledge. The readers get a bunch of information which helps them understand the topic of the report and what is going on. Most report tend to use jargon but, in this case, I feel like both lab reports are responsible for this a bit. The first report does not have much information which tends to leave the reader a bit clueless on what else could have been done differently or not. The second report at times seem to have a lot of wording which not all readers are familiarized.  I do find the report persuasive to the point I feel I can be able to replicate the experiment to an extent.