Lab Reports

Every laboratory will require a written report, and these will be the primary basis for your grade. Electronic submission to scott.yost@citadel.edu is preferred. The report is due by the beginning of the following laboratory. Reports may also be turned in on paper at the laboratory or placed in a drop box in the physics office. Notify me if you use the drop box. If the next laboratory is a Makeup Week, the report must still be turned in electronically or to the deposit box before the normal class time. Late reports will receive a one-grade reduction, unless you have an acceptable excuse. Reports more than one week late will not be accepted. All reports will be graded and returned simultaneously, one week from the due date.

Reports must be prepared electronically, regardless of how they are turned in. The computer-interfaced data acquisition, statistical analysis, and plotting require an electronic presentation to precisely and clearly communicate the results. Hand-written reports or hand-produced graphs are unacceptable, and if presented, will result in severe grade reductions.

While you will work together in the laboratory, at its end, each student will have an individual record of the experiment, and will use this record to write a personal laboratory report. The lab report is absolutely not a team or joint project. You should have the same data as your partner, but its interpretation should be your own, and anything written about it must express your own ideas and be in your own words. Although collaborative reports are not considered plagiarism in this course (not an honor violation), they are considered a serious breach of course regulations, and will result in a failing grade for the report. A report should be complete, but not excessively wordy, and should avoid repetition and overgeneralization. A good report should begin with a standard title page as explained in the laboratory manual, clearly showing your name and who your collaborators were. It should then have the following sections:

Introduction

Always begin with a short summary of what your experiment is supposed to demonstrate, in your own words. This may be just a sentence or two, and need not be labeled independently.

Procedure

Give enough detail of the experiment to explain how you did the measurement, and what equipment you used. Anything special you did to make the measurements more precise should be noted here. Any problems should also be noted. Don't just reproduce the lab manual. This should be specific to how you carried out the instructions. When discussing equipment and its use, also estimate how accurately you believe it can measure the data you are taking. Give a reason for your estimate. Knowing the precision of your measurement is essential to deciding whether or not it agrees with theory. This section should not be pedantically repetitive, but also should not omit any important detail.

Analysis

You should reproduce enough data from your tables to allow the reader to see how you came to your conclusion. Include equations necessary to compare your data to theory, and graphs showing how the data and theory compare. Any graphs should be done on the computer. Careful plotting of results is an essential part of interpreting the data, so missing or sloppy graphs will result in a significant grade reduction. Unlabeled or improperly labeled graphs will also result in a grade reduction. Axis spacing should be uniform in terms of a measured quantity - linear or logarithmic spacing is acceptable, but random spacings of the sort Microsoft Excel prefers to produce by default are not.

Discussion

When writing the discussion, be aware that it is impossible to prove anything using an experiment. You can only confirm agreement with a theory within the precision of your experiment. The discussion must show how well the results agreed with theoretical predictions. It must say whether the agreement was within reason for your procedures, based on an estimate of the errors in the data you acquired. The sources of the errors should be discussed. If you do not agree with the theory, you should discuss possible reasons, and make suggestions for improving the measurements. Do not neglect this section. A thoughtful discussion can do a lot to boost your grade, even if the experiment didn't work out well.

I will normally review your reports with you when I return them. If your grades on laboratory reports are unsatisfactory and you do not understand why, be sure to schedule an appointment to discuss this in detail, and bring your reports to the meeting. If English skills are a problem, you may also wish to contact the Citadel Writing and Learning Center. See their web site, www.citadelwritingandlearning.com.