SECTION
THREE : Introduction
Establishing a context
for the lab
Step
1: (Use your response to PreLab question 1 for this step.) Briefly
describe the research problem you were given to solve or which you identified
based on your individual research. Define the problem by giving the knowns
and the unknowns. Then state the research question that you used to guide
the research to solve your problem. This will be the first paragraph or
so of your Introduction.
More
Help:
- If you are having
trouble writing a good opening sentence for the lab report, you can
say something like: “The problem for this lab was X…”
“The problem we were asked to solve was X…”.
- As you are defining
the problems, don’t just list the knowns and unknowns. Describe
them in paragraph form.
- You can give your
research question in the form of a question or as a statement, such
as “To solve this problem, it is necessary to find Y…”.
- Be sure to make
the connection between the unknowns and the research question, to show
how answering the question will lead to the solution to the problem.
Step
2: (Use your response to PreLab questions 2 and 3 for this step.)
In the next paragraph or two, state the scientific concept that this problem
relates to. Then describe what you know about the scientific concept that
is relevant to understanding and solving the problem. Note any citations
you use here for References section.
More
Help:
- If you are having
trouble starting this paragraph, here are some suggestions: "The
problem for this lab is based on Z…”; "This laboratory
is about X…" ; "This lab is designed to help students
learn about, observe, or investigate, X…." Or begin with
a definition of the scientific concept: "X is a theory that…."
- Once you have your opening sentence, you are ready to complete the
opening paragraph by telling what you know about the scientific concept.
The point is to show your lab instructor that you have a good grasp
of the scientific concept. Revise your response to the PreLab question
by:
- Focusing it so that it contains information about the concept
that is most clearly related to the lab problem (not everything
there is to know about the concept).
- Incorporating additional relevant information about the concept
you may have learned since doing the PreLab.
- Changing it so that the scientific concept is appropriate to the
lab (this would apply if all or parts of what you wrote about the
scientific concept in the Pre-Lab are wrong for this lab).
- If you have a lot to say about the scientific concept, use more than
one paragraph.
- This part of the Introduction is typically written in present tense.
For more advanced labs:
If you are writing a lab report that is intended to be more like a
full scientific paper, you may need to do more research using the
Internet and library. With your teacher's guidance, you should search
the recent scientific literature to find other research in this area
of study. Summarize that research in a paragraph or so, stating what
the general findings have been and using those findings to describe
the current knowledge in the area (such a "review of the literature"
is typical of scientific journal articles). This summary should come
after your initial sentence about the scientific concept. For help
with citing references, go to Citations
and References.
Step
3: (Use your response to PreLab questions 3-5 for this step.)
In a paragraph or two, present the hypothesis that emerged out of the
research question. Then explain the reasoning you used, based on what
you have said about the scientific concept, to arrive at the hypothesis.
Finally, in a sentence or two, briefly describe the experimental procedures
you used to test your hypothesis.
More
Help:
- Revise your original
hypothesis from the PreLab so that it is clearly stated: "The hypothesis
for this lab was…"; "My hypothesis was…"; "We
predicted that…"; "I hypothesized that…."
- As you are explaining
the reasoning you used to come to your hypothesis, be sure to make a
direct connection between the hypothesis and the scientific concept
of the lab. You can also use basic scientific logic that is not specifically
linked to the scientific concept.
- One way to make
your explanation clearer is to use words that show causal links: because,
since, due to the fact that, as a result,
therefore, consequently, etc. For example, Since X
happens in order to maximize energy, we hypothesized that . . .
- If your explanation
is relatively long, use more than one paragraph.
|
