Purpose:
The rhetorical analysis of two lab report assignments helped everyone understand how to format a lab report. It required us to read chapter 19:Writing Lab Reports, in Mike Markels, “Technical Communication”. This chapter was solely based on writing a lab report and the key factors that must be included. I took my knowledge from this chapter and applied it on two lab reports from City College’s database.
My Analysis:
Engineers and scientists conduct many experiments and collect research from all of it. They must organize in a way all participants in the field of study know you to interpret it and this is why they make lab reports. Lab reports enables them to share their results, graphs, and ideas from their research. A lab report isn’t as easy as it seems you must follow a certain format and include certain pieces to make your lab report well-developed and informative. The pieces you need are title, abstract, introduction, material and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and references. In this paper, I’m going to compare two lab reports and see if they followed the essential needs of a lab report and also see if they followed the correct format. I’ll be looking into, “Teaching An Electrical Circuit Course Using a Virtual Lab” by Md Zahidur Rahman and “Droplet spreading on liquid–fluid interface” a report conducted by Muhammad Rizwanur Rahman, Haritha Naidu Mullagura, Bharath Kattemalalawadi, and Prashant R. Waghmare.
The first element in lab reports is a title. A title seems easy, but it isn’t in a lab report title it must be specific enough where the reader knows what is. A title main purpose is to make it easy for all engineers and scientists to know what they are reading. Both lab reports follow this rule as they both made the titles very s informative, but they could use some work. Md Rahman makes it very noticeable what his report is about, but the virtual lab area is such a big area of study. He could have been a little more specific by using which lab he used to conduct his report. This’ll help engineers focusing on that certain virtual lab get a better understanding of it. Going into Muhammad Rizwanur’s title it’s the perfect title to me because it’s specifically focuses on the ideas that are brought up. His title is specific enough where the reader knows what exactly you are reading as in Md’s report, he didn’t specifically state in his title what virtual lab platform he was using.
The second element in a lab report is an abstract. An abstract summarizes the entire report, as well as outline the structure of the paper. The abstract contains the most important parts of each section and explains them briefly. It’ll be about one-three sentences long for each section, and it should contain enough information that’ll let the reader know if they need to read the report. Both authors successfully did their abstract clear but had different structures. “This paper describes designing and implementing a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) study in a basic electrical circuits course” (Rahman 1), this quote is the first sentence in Md Zahidur Rahman’s report. As you can see Md Rahman, went straight into what the paper is in his first sentence, then he formulated the questions behind his paper later on in his abstract. This is a very effective way to get your abstract across and outlined his paper perfectly. Unlike, Md Rahman, Muhammad Rizwanur Rahman took another approach. He also made his abstract clear and allowed it to outline his report, but he introduced it as a study. He introduced the study behind droplet spreading on liquid-fluid interface and went into his research and reasoning of making a report on it. Overall, both authors took a different approach in their abstracts, but both presented their abstracts in a very clear that allows the readers to acknowledge what they’ll be reading easily.
After stating your abstract, you must get into the introduction which is the third element of your lab report. The introduction is where the author discusses the importance of their research, and the hypothesis. Discussing the importance of your topic comes with many factors. You must show why it’s relevant to know, how it helps the field you are in, and include the previous research that’s been done and show how your new research aids it. For example, in Md Rahman introduction he first mentions his previous studies with electrical circuit courses and explained how his research in this lab will benefit previous research. Md did a great job by doing this because he differentiated the previous and current research perfectly but explained how they go hand to hand. Muhammad Rahman also implemented the importance of old research and his research, but he also went briefly into the unanswered questions by scientists in his introduction which was a great addition to his introduction. Both authors also did a great job in explaining their method and how it is important. To conclude, both introductions were very in depth and specific which is very beneficially to all readers in their field of study.
The fourth element of a lab report is the material and method section. All lab reports must consist of this and it is important because it allows you to show the readers why your approach was reasonable, and why the materials and method you used was credible in the specific research. In Muhammad’s report, he did a great job in explain his materials. It explained the density, interfacial tension, and viscosity of each materials. This was good because he explained these features of each material and how it gave different results for the droplet spreading on interfaces. Regarding Md’s report, he actually didn’t have any materials he just needed students, but he explained why he choose the students he did which benefited his methodology. What I liked about both reports was the structure in the material and method section. They both went into the materials first, then went into the methodology of their procedure and explained how their materials were used. Overall, both authors followed the right procedure and provided why their materials and method were relevant to the results needed to the experiment.
The methods and materials explained the methodology of your report and its only right to follow it up with the fifth element which is the results. The result section will provide the raw data resulted from the methods you’ve done in your report. The results can be presented in numbers, tables, charts, and graphs. Also, you must connect your results to the question/ hypothesis you proposed in the beginning of your report. In Md’s result section, he presented his results in a table, and only provided results on the questions he presented earlier in the report. What stood out was he also explained his chart to make it clearer to the readers why this is useful to his question. Lastly, he concluded his results with the question he intended to answer. Which was, do students benefit from multisim? With Muhammad’s results, he included many figures, graphs, and statistics which was needed in the type of research he conducted. Even though Muhammed’s result was very long he followed one of the most important rules which was providing the most important results first. As well as Md, Muhammed connected his results back to the hypothesis and the question that he intended to solve. All in all, both authors presented their results in different ways, but both solved the questions they set out to solve.
The element both authors missed out on was the discussion section. Also, known as the analysis section which is the sixth element of a lab report. Both authors didn’t make a separate section where they talked about their results and brought it back to their hypothesis. IN Muhammed report he brought this section up at the end of his results section. As for Md, he mentioned this in his conclusion. Both researchers included the aspects of a discussion section but didn’t make a separate section for it.
The conclusion, which is the seventh element, is where the author wraps up and summarizes the entire lab report in one or two paragraphs. Both authors conducted this within one paragraph but had different approaches. Muhammed Rahman went straight into his results again, and answered the question asked in the beginning. This is effective, but I believe he should have reviewed his hypothesis again and broke down the significance of this learning outcome. Which is what Md Rahman did where he explained the importance of his report and explained why it’ll be helpful in the future.
Lastly, the final element of a lab report is the reference section. The reference section is very crucial because if you don’t give credit to the sources you referred to your lab report is invalid. Both authors included a reference section and cited all sources they listed. They both had a handful of evidence used from outside sources, but they made sure to cite them which made their reports valid.
Overall, being able to follow these elements will give you a credible and efficient lab report. In this day and age, scientists and engineers are running hundreds of experiments so you must be specific and follow a certain format all workers can understand and that’s why they all follow these eight elements. Muhammad Rizwanur Rahman, and Md Zahidur Rahman did a great job on following this format and that’s why their lab reports were efficient.
References
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=lg_pubs
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