T1/2/3 & F4/5 Formal Reports
General
A good formal report will pass on information to busy people working in the same field as the writer in an efficient manner. They must contain enough information to convey the reason for the report, describe the manner in how the particular problem being looked at was conducted, and draw reasoned conclusions from the results.
The writer must first understand what they are looking at and have enough background to be able to show how this is relevant. As a student you are in the unusual position that you have not chosen the report and you probably will not have sufficient background todraw on. That is why we have a library! It is expected you will obtain sufficient background and knowledge for yourselves to be able to write inteligently about the experiment you performed. You will be marked on the manner that you have written the report, not on the quality of your data. Although the quality of data can help in producing a formal report you have already been marked on it in the lab session.
The sections suggested for formal reports in the Lab Handbook are:
The summary is not part of the report.
Appendices are used when the information is required but would interrupt the flow of understanding if they were presented in the main body. Generally the information they contain can be taken as read when the reader is gaining a general understanding of the work but may need to be scrutinised to understand it in more depth.
You should stick with these sections and only add subsections to them if it is absolutely necessary. Below are links to pages where comments on the contents of each section is given for each experiment. Use them in conjunction with the Lab Handbook's section on formal reports.
This is a link to an example formal report which may be of use in deciding what content to put in each section