Tips for Writing in the Sciences

In general, know your objective and your audience. Your objective may be to communicate the results of an experiment, or perhaps to explain a complex concept. Your audience may be a scholarly one, it may be your classmates, or perhaps it may be the general public. Knowing your objective and your audience focuses your writing.

Lab Report Writing
Communicating the results of experiments is a critical step of the scientific method. Science is where it is today because the investigators of the past communicated their results. We were able to learn from them and continue the study. Sir Isaac Newton's comment was "If I have seen farther, it was by standing on the shoulders of giants."

The audience is scholarly. You are practicing the style of writing used in research journals. Voice is formal and generally impersonal. This means we usually avoid using personal pronouns.

The objective is to communicate results, concisely and straight-out. In a novel, the objective is to build suspense and to hide the conclusion until near the end. This is not true for writing-up the results of a scientific investigation.

These parts are generally included in a lab report... (Please consult with your instructor for the particular format he/she requires.)
Abstract	brief summary of purpose, methodology, and results
Introduction	provides some background information, explains the principles involved, and how the experimental design accomplished the objective(s). Because the audience is scholarly, one can assume the reader has a certain level of expertise.
Experimental Methods	describes the procedure in sufficient detail so that another scientist could perform the experiment.
Discussion	shows calculations, gives explanations and results. Includes an Error Discussion (see below).

Error Discussion - focuses on the methodic error. This is the inherent limitation of the method, and of course, no method is perfect. *(under construction)*
A. Sources of Error	1. Determinate (or Systematic) Errors - These are errors with a definite cause. Usually they are unidirectional with respect to the true value.
	a. Methodic Errors - have to do with procedural limitations and problems. These should be the focus of your discussion.
	b. Operative (Human) Errors - Do not include general human errors. Only include specific human errors if you made them and, due to time constraints, were not able to correct. In this case, describe how they affected your final result. Be as quantitative as possible.
	c. Instrumental Errors / Limitations
	2. Indeterminate (Random) Errors -These are errors without a definite cause. They lead to high or low results with equal probability.
B. Applicable Mathematical Treatment of Error	Examples are averaging, curve fitting, calculating % error. Be sure to refer to these numerical analyses and to interpret them.
C. The Error Discussion Itself