Guidelines for the Preparation of Lab
Reports: ESCI 407/507
PLAGIARISM: The University's policy on Academic Dishonesty will be rigorously enforced. You are encouraged to review the University Bulletin for additional information on the Academic Dishonesty Policy. You should realize that, when writing a lab report, any direct quote from any source (including my web pages) should be placed in quotations and the source should be cited. Failure to do so represents an act of academic dishonest. Other examples of plagiarism are listed in the University Bulletin.
FORMAT: Formatting issues are always a pain. I am much more interested in content, organization and clarity (see below). Nevertheless, failure to pay attention to formatting details can interfere with comprehension. It also tends to make me surly. When you leave here and get a job – this happens – a report full of typos, grammatical errors and misspelled words tells your boss that you are sloppy and lazy. Is this really the message you want to convey with your documents? Get used to paying attention to these details.
The assignment must be typed. As with all assignments you turn in, it should
be double-spaced with one-inch margins with no less than a 12-point font. All
of this makes it much easier for me to read. It must be written using standard
written English. Go have a chat with the folks in the
In the interest of saving a few trees, you are encouraged to print out this assignment, and all others, on previously used paper. By this I mean a piece of paper with something else printed on the other side. I don’t care what color the paper is and I don’t care if the other side has an ad for a used waterbed on it.
ORGANIZATION:
pdf_files\lertzman1995BullESA2.pdf
The following guidelines are adapted from those developed by Dean Urban
at Duke University.
Here are some guidelines for writing your lab reports. These reports serve two purposes. First, they show me that you've understood the material in the lab exercise and have assimilated that well enough to be able to synthesize and integrate it with the lecture material and your readings. Secondly, they provide a vehicle for further developing your technical writing skills. I would again underscore the importance of being able to communicate complicated information clearly and concisely, a skill that comes only with practice.
Your lab reports will be written in journal format, using a style such as the journal Landscape Ecology or Ecology. The content of each of the main sections is outlined below. When grading lab reports, each section will be weighted as indicated.
Title (1 point)
Provide a suitable title. The title should provide an informed reader with an idea of the topic of this report. A title like: "Lab Report Number Three" is not very informative.
Abstract (3 points)
This should provide a brief synopsis of the report in about 100 to 200 words. You should view the abstract as a miniature lab report. In greatly abbreviated form, it should contain an introduction, methods, results and discussion sections. Many bibliographic services reproduce and distribute the just the titles and abstracts of papers from many journals. For this reason, the title and abstract need to be able to stand alone. They serve as an advertisement of sorts for your paper and they must convince the busy scientist to use some of her or his precious time to read the rest of your paper. For this reason the title and abstract can be the most important part of any scientific paper.
Introduction
This section is normally part of a scientific paper but SHOULD NOT BE INCLUDED IN YOUR WRITEUPS FOR THIS CLASS. Our webpages should serve as an adequate introduction and we are trying to reduce your workload a bit! Set the context for the report. What background motivates the exercise? Why is this work important? What is the overall goal, and what are the specific objectives of the exercise?
Methods (6 points)
The Methods section typically will include two subsections describing the Data and the Analyses. The Data subsection would include a summary of what the data are, where they came from, how they were collected (sampling design, sample size), and perhaps some summary description. This part will vary considerably, of course, depending on the nature of the report.
The Analyses subsection should lay out the analyses at a level of detail
that makes it possible for someone else to reproduce your work. This means
defining some methods (or citing the original source) and explaining how you
did things. For example,
I computed a patch shape index
as a perimeter/area ratio, normalized for raster data (O'Neill et al. 1988).
This section should not include references to your graphics package, spreadsheet, or various utilities that are "user's choice" and that don't affect the actual results. Specific tasks in your analyses should map onto the specific objectives outlined in your Introduction.
Results (10 points)
The results section should present your key findings concisely and objectively. Figures and tables are appropriate and often present information more efficiently than text. For complicated results, you may include sufficient explanation so that the reader can understand the figures or tables, but do not interpret the results. This section should include nothing that is subjective; the results should be allowed to speak for themselves.
Try to tell a story with your Results. Refer to key figures and tables as you present your key findings. For example, it will read better to say:
The number of patches shows a
strongly nonlinear relationship with the proportion of landscape occupied by
forest (figure 1). At the same time, mean nearest-neighbor distance increases
blah blah blah (figure 2).
than to say:
Results are shown in figures
1-6.
It may be helpful to include subsections here, or to otherwise format the section so that the key results mirror the analyses outlined in your Methods section (which themselves echo the specific objectives in your Introduction).
All figures and tables should have legends that include enough detail to allow the table or figure to stand alone. All line symbols or shading patterns should be defined. Legends should be places above tables and below figures.
Discussion (18 points)
The discussion section is your opportunity to interpret your results further and to put these into the context of other similar studies or prevailing theory (or opinion). Any wild speculation or personal opinions you might have can be included here (rather than in the Results). Any uncertainties or biases that might confound your results also should be admitted here.
In particular, your Discussion should provide some closure to the report, by specifically addressing the objectives you set forth in the Introduction. If you have a lot of complex results (or a long discussion) it might be appropriate to collect your closing comments in a separate Conclusions section.
The discussion section is also an opportunity for you to reflect on what you might do to follow up on this analysis. What would you do differently? How would you refine your analysis? What is the next logical step to follow up on your work? All scientific investigation build on the results of earlier work. This is your opportunity to provide some suggestions to those who might choose to follow up on your work. In many ways, this could be the most important part of your discussion section.
Literature Cited (2 points)
Include references to any other works you cite in your Introduction, as sources for your Methods, or in discussing your results (there shouldn't be any citations in your Results).
Follow standard journal styles for citations:
Whozit, D.Q. 1998. Landscapes as the matrix for destiny. J. Landscape Ecol. 1:1-16.
Web sources may be cited only if they are maintained in an archival (permanent) form. Cite the author and date in the text (Keitt et al. 1997), and include the entire URL (including title and date) in the Literature Cited:
Keitt, T.H., D.L. Urban, and B.T. Milne. 1997. Detecting critical scales in fragmented landscapes. Conservation Ecol. 1(1):4. http://www.consecol.org/Journal/vol1/iss1/art4.
As a general rule, transient or informal websites should not be cited in scientific papers. For the purposes of these lab reports, you may cite my lab handouts in your methods section. My lecture notes are not allowable citations for your reports.
Other sources of information: Take a look at the short book by Robert Day, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper. This book is available online! I would very strong urge you to take a look at it! It is a very quick read and it provides a detailed discussion of each section of the paper. (Click here to access this book online)
More tips for writing lab reports:
Prepared by: P. Horne and N. Antonova
Title:
-- What you did
-- How you did it (e.g. with satellite imagery)
-- Where the study was focused
Abstract:
-- General opening sentence with brief background of study
-- Specific location of study
-- Type of imagery used
-- Objective of the study
-- Main technique used
-- Interesting results
-- Conclusion / Success and usefulness of approach
Introduction:
-- Background information including some history of the event/location and
justification
for why the study is important
-- Objective of the study
-- Expected results
Methods:
-- Appropriate nomenclature for bands
-- Description of data used
-- Techniques used in the study. Do not include specifics about the program
(e.g. which
module was used or .pix file information), but tell
the reader the conceptual technique
(e.g. "we used image multiplication . . .")
-- Give some information as to why you chose to use the bands you worked
with
Results:
-- Give resulting image with brief explanation/description
-- Highlight important points in the text
-- Tables/Histograms
-- Descriptive titles and legends
Discussion:
-- Ideas about methods that could improve results
-- Reasoning/Justification for methods (if not adequately addresses in the
Methods
section)
-- Implications of the results; why the study was important
-- Whether the study succeeded or failed
-- Biases that could affect results
-- Interpretation of problems still present in the results
-- Any problems with the original data or set up of the study
-- Is the approach valid? Could it be used in the future?
Note: Full credit for each section is dependent on clarity of
writing and understanding and use of concepts from the lectures.
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