Guidance with lab-report structure

[ergospherical]

I am about to start writing a fairly important lab-report and have a few questions about structure.

The experiment can be broken down into three “sub-experiments”, which have their own methodologies and conclusions. Each involves investigating the behaviour of a different part of the apparatus. At the end, I will use these conclusions to suggest how I decided to calibrate each part of the apparatus in order to optimise the performance of the device.

It is advised by the examining body to stick to the standard abstract/introduction/body/conclusions/references format of professional literature.

Should I split the introduction (which should examine the aims, theoretical background & place the work in context) into three sub-experiments, the body into three sub-experiments (i.e. one section for the methodology, results, analysis & errors for each), and the conclusion into three sub-experiments, and then have a final section to summarise the overall conclusions? Or should I write a separate introduction, body, and conclusion for each sub-experiment, and present each sub-experiment separately?

What is the most sensible way to format such a paper, in your opinion? I think the former is a better choice, because it would make the paper more cohesive. Thank you.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Did you ask your lab instructor what he or she thinks?

 

[berkeman]

It is advised by the examining body to stick to the standard abstract/introduction/body/conclusions/references format of professional literature.

Without knowing a lot more about the experiments and assignment, I would probably go with a common abstract/introduction, followed by separate body/conclusions sections, followed by a final overall conclusions section and then the references. I'd use section numbers throughout and a table of contents at the start of the report with page numbers for each section to make it easy to see the overall structure of the lab report document. Are you familiar with how to use "Headings" and the "Insert, Table of Contents" features in MS Word to organize a document like this?

And I agree with @MathematicalPhysicist that if your instructor(s) will tell you what they want, that would be best. OTOH, they may be leaving that open as part of the overall assignment (and will grade you on how well the report is organized and how it flows).

 

[ergospherical]

Are you familiar with how to use "Headings" and the "Insert, Table of Contents" features in MS Word to organize a document like this?

I'm currently writing it in $\LaTeX$ :)
but this is good advice nonetheless, because it's already getting messy!

 

[berkeman]

Ah, okay. But you can still do the numbered headings and Table of Contents manually. For big documents where I keep adding new sub-sections and new major sections, the Heading levels in MS Windows and the macro to re-generate the TOC are very handy in keeping it organized.

But if the document is simple enough and relatively static, you can do all that manually. The only thing you'll need to be careful to get right at the end is the page numbers for each heading item in the TOC for the final document draft.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

I'm currently writing it in $\LaTeX$ :)
but this is good advice nonetheless, because it's already getting messy!

Try overleaf. Very easy to keep things titled, numbered, and structured...

 

[ergospherical]

I'm making good progress! I think the paper is starting to look pretty sexy, if I may say so.
Have had a few teething issues formatting figures/tables/graphs etc. with Overleaf but most things to be working now. The majority of the body is done, so the main focus now is on completing the abstract, intro & conclusions. Just need to stock up on a few snacks and get cracking!

A technical question: does anyone have experience drawing flow-charts in $\LaTeX$? I did the circuit schematics using an external tool, but I think it'd be nice if the flowcharts were in the same style as the rest of the document.

 

[Astronuc]

A technical question: does anyone have experience drawing flow-charts in ? I did the circuit schematics using an external tool, but I think it'd be nice if the flowcharts were in the same style as the rest of the document.

Can one import/embed a jpg or png file?

Usually in writing a lab report, or any kind of research article about a calculation or experiment, one would start with an introduction and why the calculation or experiment is important or of interest, perhaps some background. For example, I would give some background material on a particular experiment, with some previous approaches, and then explain my (or the team's) approach, and whether the results confirmed or improved on previous work. Or, if there is something new or novel, e.g., an improved (more accurate) result or a novel approach, then I'd discuss that in the following sections about the calculational or experimental method. Between the introduction and main body, there might be a section on the theory.

After going through the calculation/experiment, one comes to the discussion of the results, and then the conclusions.