The lab notebook
should contain
- a copy of the lab specification provided by your
instructor, if applicable;
- notes on how you chose your circuit design;
- a schematic drawing of your circuit;
- an analysis of the circuit;
- design equations that apply to it;
- notes on how you decided what component values to
use;
- values you measured for your components;
- what you measured in your circuit;
- what values you got;
- questions you had about your lab work as you
proceeded;
- graphs and tables as appropriate
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The lab report explains to a
knowledgeable
reader what you did. It organizes the material in such a way that
it can be readily grasped. Everything present in the report
should be there for a specific purpose that is obvious to the reader.
You may need to state what that purpose is, if it is not
immediately apparent. Here are some specific guidelines you
should observe in writing your report:
- Include an abstract, summarizing the results of
the experiment. It should let a prospective reader answer the
question, "Should I read this report?"
- Include a table of contents, a list of figures,
and a list of tables.
- State what the purpose of the lab is.
- State what equipment you used. This helps a
reader decide how hard it would be to replicate your results.
- Present a schematic of your circuit and an
explanation of what it does. This includes an analysis and the
design equations that let you pick appropriate component values.
- Explain how you chose what components to use.
- Give your observations. You may elect to
put details into one or more appendices if doing so clarifies your
report.
- Analyze and interpret the results of the
lab. This may require graphs with a guide to the reader on how to
interpret the graphs.
- State your conclusions. What new questions
did your work raise? Were the results surprising?
How? What hypotheses would allow further investigation into any
surprises? What aspects of the design equations were not exactly
right? What approximations in the theory as you applied it might
have led to the results you observed? What unexpected or
unmeasured factors might explain what you saw? What experimental
blunders would help explain any surprises?
- Eliminate spelling errors from your report.
Try reading it aloud to yourself in order to detect awkard phrasing and
get rid of it, too.
- Number all figures and tables. Refer to
them in your report by number so that the reader knows which ones you
are referring to. Provide captions that summarize what they show.
- Number all pages.
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