Begin with an abstract describing the experimental objectives and procedures. All writing should be in thirdperson, professional style. A lab report should begin with a short introductory section (one or two paragraphs) that describes the general activities and briefly summarizes findings. In this summary, you should identify the most important or interesting aspects of the lab. Try to use objective professional language. For example, do not say “I hooked up X and was supposed to get R but when I did Y it didn’t work so I tried Z and then it worked.” Instead, say something like “X was studied using a Z configuration, with result R.”
Provide a summary of your pre-lab calculations, focusing specifically on the calculations that affect your experimental design. Note that some calculations are purely instructive; only include them in the report if they directly affect your experiment. If you performed experiment X and plan to write about it in the report, then you should fully describe any pre-lab analysis related to X.
If the lab includes a session with the SPICE simulator, place the results here. Again, you do not need to be exhaustive. Focus on what is important. If you are reporting on specific experiment X, then provide the simulation results related to X and explain how they match with the pre-lab analysis related to X. All of your sections should tie-in with each other.
Here’s the part where you place your actual measurements. If you choose to discuss experiment X, then provide quantitative data resulting from the experiment, and compare those results to the predictions made in pre-lab analysis and simulation.
In this section, provide a summary and interpretation of your results. If your experimental results did not match your predictions, then offer plausible hypotheses to explain the discrepancy. If your results point toward a grand conclusion or generalization, state it here. Explain your results with reference to the stated objectives of the lab. Were there any noteworthy or unusual observations that arose from the experiments? Did your results match theoretical expectations? If not, give reasonable hypotheses as to what might have gone wrong. Support your hypotheses with plausible arguments.
If you need to include data tables in the report, place them in an appendix at the end. The main body of your report should not be over-burdened with minutia. The report should communicate knowledge and insights. The minutia can go at the end for the reader’s reference. Record careful tables of numerical results. Always record units and precision for experimental measurements.
All equipment used for the experiment should be recorded in the lab book. Record the manufacturer and model number. Record a list of components and other parts for each experiment.
- Draw/reproduce complete schematic diagrams for all circuits used in the experiment.
| Symbols | Markdown Code |
|---|---|
| Ohm (Uppercase Omega) | Ω |
| Lowercase Omega | ω |