introduction for a lab report

1 Introduction

This section is to provide a brief background of the experiment explaining its purpose and objectives. However, do not copy/paste the abstract. All the report has to be kept as brief as possible. Never use the first or second person. Never say “I carried out 5 hardness measurements” or even worse “You carried out 5 hardness measurements”. Instead write“ Five hardness measurements were carried out”.

Introduction

Writing a laboratory report is as important as taking data. When I say “writing,” that includes the careful analysis of data and attention to the details of how the information is formatted for the ultimate reader. Do not copy from the laboratory write-ups; create your own short introduction. The introduction should be concise. It should explain the outlines of the experiment, what results have been determined, and salient points about the experiment. It should be about how your experiment worked, not some reprise of the general statements in the write-ups. Remember

that an introduction “tells the reader what he/she is going to be reading.” Here is an example of a concise introduction:

The infrared (IR) spectrum of CO has been analyzed to determine the fundamental constants of the molecule. The results can be expressed in terms of the rotation constant, Be, the rotation vibration constant, αe, and the vibrational frequency. By IR spectroscopy on ground state molecules, it is not possible to determine the zeroth-order vibrational frequency, so we report the vibrational frequency, ν 0 2 e

ν 0 − x . The results are consistent with data in the literature, within

experimental error.

The object of the introduction is to give the reader a sense of what you are doing, why you are doing it in the way you are doing the experiment, and what results you have determined. Since scientific results are considered to be independent of the observer, it is appropriate to state any differences between one’s work and that of others. It may be appropriate to give numbers at this point (as well as in a section labeled “Conclusions”, but it is not always necessary.