Carnegie Mellon University

Laboratory Report Guidelines

1. Cover Page

Title and names of lab team.

2. Table of Contents

3. Executive Summary

The length of the executive summary should be less than one page. It summarizes the motivation for the work, the key results, and the conclusions. (This is the one page you would want the head of your division to read if he or she wanted to know what you did on a project).

What are you going to do?

Why are you doing it?

How are you going to do it?

5. Theory (if appropriate)

Summarize your key results. Either reference their source or put very complicated derivations in appendices.

6. Experiment

Explain the purpose of the experiment

Summarize the procedure you used (should include diagrams of experimental set-up).

Summarize results, typically using graphs.

7. Analysis of Results

Compare theory and experimental results.

8. Conclusions and Discussion

The big picture. Put the work in perspective.

9. Appendices

Separate appendices should be used for major technical subjects, i.e. theoretical derivations, tables of measured data, etc.

Comments:

The purpose of the report format is to make it easier to understand your work. This is accomplished in two ways. The first is that the main body of the report should be written in such a manner that your ideas are explained in a smooth logical manner. Complicated details, such as theoretical derivations or large amounts of tabular data, should be put in appendices so as to not interrupt the flow of ideas. The second way in which the report format facilitates understanding is that it can be read at different levels of detail. A quick understanding may be gotten by reading the executive summary and conclusions and a deeper understanding by reading the main body of the report. Lastly, those people who are deeply interested in your results can study the appendices.