BIOL 4650
Animal Behavior
TIPS FOR WRITING A
LAB REPORT
You must sign up to write up a particular lab at the end of that lab. Your report is then due 2 weeks later. You will receive a handout at the beginning of lab specifying the details of what must be included in your report. You have the option of changing your mind and deciding to write up another lab, but you must make that decision within the first week. After one week has gone by, you are locked into writing up the lab you’ve signed up for, and failure to turn it in on time will result in late penalties (see the course syllabus).
The following are general items to consider in writing a lab report. While you do not need to follow these instructions to the letter, they should give you some idea of the stylistic issues you should consider.
1. All papers should be typed, double-spaced, with approximately 1 inch margins all around.
2. All pages, including any figures or tables, should be numbered.
3. Your paper should be organized as follows and will be graded as indicated:
Introduction--(Lab report 1: 3 points; Lab report 2: 5 points) State what the paper is about and why this problem is interesting or worth study. Indicate in general terms the kinds of issues you will be dealing with in your paper. You may want to indicate what hypotheses you are testing and the predicted outcomes of your experiments.
Methods--(Lab Report 1: 12 points; Lab Report 2: 20 points) State as specifically as possible what you did. The goal of a good methods section is for someone who knows nothing about the study to be able to replicate it just by following the methods you've written down. So remember: detail, detail, detail. As part of this, you want to decribe the way you collected data and also the way you analyzed it, indicating the kinds of comparisons (and the kinds of statistical tests you used to make those comparisons) that you will be presenting in the Results.
Results--(Lab Report 1: 12 points; Lab Report 2: 20 points) Provide the results of the analyses you have described in the Methods. Put any figures or tables at the end of the report (after the Discussion) with each figure or table on a separate, numbered page. DO NOT include any tables or figures that you do not refer to in the text of your paper. Number each table and figure successively (if you have four tables, then they should be labelled as Table 1, Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4--the same applies to figures). Refer to figures and tables by these names in the text of your report. When referring to a table or figure, do not restate all the information presented there. Instead, state generally what the illustration or table is about and then refer the reader to it (e.g., "males were significantly more vigilant than females, see Table 1"). Results of statistical tests (P values, etc) should be presented either in the text or as part of a figure or table. [e.g., "adults were significantly less vigilant than were juveniles (t-test, P < 0.0001, see Table 1)].
Discussion--(Lab report 1: 3 points; Lab report 2: 5 points) Provide a brief discussion of what your results mean. If you got some significant differences, why do you think they occurred? If you didn't get any significant differences, why do you think that happened? Was there anything unexpected in your results or were they what you predicted? If unexpected, try to explain why. At the end of the discussion, provide a one or two paragraph summary that provides the take-home message of your paper. Go over all of your main points here in a way that ties them all together.
For further information, look at any article in a recent
issue of the journal Animal
For lab reports you DO NOT have to cite outside sources or provide a bibliography (though you may if you wish to). For term papers or projects you must have a complete bibliography (see the handout on "tips for writing a research paper").