Formal laboratory report guidelines
Keep your class sheet beside this companion. Use the numbered help for the part you are working on.
Format
Letter-sized white pages, one-inch margins, 12-point Times New Roman and single spacing. The title is centred about one-third down the title page; identifying fields go at lower right.
Report order
Objective; Introduction; Materials; Procedure; Results; Calculations; Discussion; Conclusion; Literature Cited. Procedure and conclusions use impersonal past tense.
Results and discussion
Tables need headings, and instrument uncertainty. Graphs need axes, scale, caption and best fit. Show one sample of each calculation type, then table repeated calculations. Explain how each error changes the result.
Percent error
Use |experimental − accepted| / |accepted| × 100%. It compares a measurement with a justified accepted value. Keep calculation precision until the final rounding; the sources do not establish a universal two-decimal rule.