Overview

Appendices A-C contain three sets of training materials that instructors can use to teach students how to write a standard lab report. Each Appendix includes:

• General background from our local laboratory manual on one sample topic (ecology, physiology, or cell biology);
• Examples of informal questions and observations students might make that could lead to testable hypotheses;
• Links to open-access articles related to the topic;
• An example of a specific, testable hypothesis originating from the informal questions;
• An outline of methods used to test one hypothesis; and
• Sample data that students can summarize, graph, test statistically, and interpret.

Each Appendix has 1-2 examples of higher quality reports and 1-2 lower quality student reports from SWP’s reports archive. To keep students from just copying these sample reports, we selected examples that describe results for a different experimental question than the training dataset.

Using the Model Data and Reports

Instructors whose students do not have the resources available to conduct their own experiments and generate their own original data could write a complete report using our background information, experimental design, methods, and sample data. Please contact the lead author if additional information is needed.

Alternatively, instructors may want their students to write their first reports using one of these standardized datasets, so the students can focus on writing and not data collection and analysis.

Instructors can use the sample reports in each Appendix as illustrations of specific poor vs. good writing practice. Alternately, they can be assigned to students to peer review.

Comments on key features or gaps that we see are in the Notes For Instructors at the end of each sample report.