For many of you English is a second language. It is common for foreign students to try to use "impressive" language in their reports, i.e. long convoluted sentences and complex terminologies from the class text. However, such reports are very difficult to read and moreover do not communicate your understanding of the material very well. Refrain from doing this. Try to use your own words instead, make sure you only use words and phrases that you truly know the meaning of.
You should always write full complete sentences. The report should be easy to read.
For those of you that have little experience in terms of writing reports, please look at some journal articles for hints. It is important that you structure your report! The report should always include an INTRODUCTION, METHODS section, RESULTS section and a CONCLUSION. Within each of these section you can put subsections - e.g. METHODS: linear methods, non-linear methods.
INTRODUCTION: Tell the reader about the background problem, and what the purpose of the analysis is. Briefly state which methods will be used and what the reader can expect in terms of results.
METHODS: In your own words, describe the methods used, the assumptions they are based on, their limitations, their implementation.
RESULTS: Include the most informative subset of figures and tables. Try to tell a "story". What is the outcome, and why is that? Were there any surprises? Was the result the expected one? Do the results lead to other open questions that should be investigated in a future work?
CONCLUSION: Briefly summarize what you've done and highlight the main results. Make sure the goal stated in the introduction does not deviate from the goal achieved stated in the conclusion. If questions remain summarize these and suggest how these could be answered in a future work.
Make sure your sentence conveys the message intended. Make sure the next sentence follows naturally from the previous one so the reader isn't left wondering where all this is going. Don't go crazy with different fonts, colors, underlining etc. It's better to keep sentences simple and short to emphasize something important.
Is a figure worth more than a thousand words? Yes and No. Make sure your figure is big enough, scaled appropriately and labeled. Also, include a caption or figure legend. The caption should tell the reader what the figure depicts and what we can conclude from the figure - it should be a stand-alone paragraph. Don't forget to refer to the figure somewhere in the text as well. You may have to repeat a lot of what was said in the caption in the text, but the reader should not have to jump back and forth to get the message. Only include figures that really matter. Including every figure you created during a lab is only confusing and dilutes the message. Part of structuring a lab report is deciding which figures and results to focus on.
If your result includes a model with several parameter, include these and their standard errors in a table instead of in the text. A table is like a figure. It can convey a lot of information, and with a caption is a stand-alone component of a report.
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