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Section 3

CHECK LIST FOR LAB REPORT

Consult chapters 4 and 10 (pp 167-175) in McMillan for general scientific writing guidelines and sample lab reports. Copies of McMillan are on reserve.

TITLE
___ Is the title descriptive?

INTRODUCTION
___ Is the question stated clearly?
___ Does the reader understand why this question is interesting (i.e., how does this study advance knowledge)?
___ Is a brief description of the experimental approach provided?

METHODS
___ Are the treatments and controls clearly described?
___ Does this section describe the sampling regime and sample
sizes, including how individuals were assigned to treatments?
___ Are the procedures followed during the experiment explained
(e.g., food, photoperiod, re-randomizing locations)?
___ Does this section indicate the dependent variables and how
and when these variables were measured?
___ Is this section written in the past tense, rather than the present tense (e.g., avoid lab manual or cook book type instructions)?

RESULTS
Text
___ Are trends in the data described?
___ Is the statistical analysis used to analyze the data identified?
___ Are the values of test statistics, df, and p noted here or in
the figures or tables?
___ Are readers referred to tables and figures for descriptive
statistics and results of statistical analyses?
Does this section include interpretation of the results? If so,
edit to remove this material. Interpretation belongs in the
discussion section.

Figures & Tables
___ Do figures and tables present descriptive statistics rather
than all the data collected?
___ Are figures and tables easy to read and interpret?
___ Are figure legends located below figures and table legends located above tables?
___ Are figure axes labelled and units of measurements indicated?
___ Are legends sufficiently complete to allow the tables or figures to stand alone?
___ Do legends indicate sample sizes and identify error bars?

DISCUSSION
___ Does this section provide the readers with the author's conclusions?
___ Are the conclusions justified by the results?
___ Are the results of this study compared with results of similar investigations?
___ If the results of the current investigation differ from other investigations, are possible reasons for these differences offered?
___ Are suggestions for future research provided?

LITERATURE CITED
___ Does the format used for citations in the text and references in the Literature Cited section follow the name-year (Harvard) style? (Consult Chapter 6 in McMillan)
___ Does this list include only references that were cited in
the text of the report?

STYLE
Organization
___ Are section headings used to identify the parts of the report (e.g., Introduction, Methods)

Sentence Structure
___ When you read the text aloud, do the sentences flow smoothly, and can all sentences
be read without stopping to draw a breath?
___ Do many sentences contain introductory clauses that provide no useful information?
___ Do the authors repeat information unnecessarily?
___ Do the authors use incomplete comparative structures (e.g, If you write that "The control treatment showed greater mean percent germination.", then you need to complete the comparison: "The control treatment showed greater mean percent germination than the root extract treatment.")?
___ Are the antecedents of pronouns clearly identified?
___ Do the authors make excessive use of passive voice?

Miscellaneous
___ Are "affect" (a verb) and "effect" (a noun) used properly?
___ Is the word "data" treated as a plural noun (e.g., "data were analyzed" not "data was analyzed)?
___ Are latin names of species underlined or italicized?
___ When a sentence starts with a number, is the number spelled out in words (e.g., "Ten salamanders were ..." not "10 salamanders were...")?
___ Do the authors use conjunctions and/or slang (e.g., "The seeds in the control treatment will not experience...." not "The seeds in the control treatment won't experience..."; "Designs such as ours..." not "Designs like ours...") ?
___ Were page breaks placed so that headings do not appear on the last line of a page?
___ Was the document spell checked?
___ Was the document proof read?
___ Is the document double spaced?
___ Is the packet stapled together (no paper clips)?

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