The Anatomy of a Lab Report + Scientific Style Tool Box

When scientists do experiments, how do they share their findings with the world?

In this lesson you will...

• Identify the essential parts of a biology lab report.
• Understand the purpose of each section.
• Draft at least one section of a lab report using correct style and format.

Lab reports follow a very specific format, so there's no question about what information goes first, second, third, etc. Lab reports may have up to seven main parts:

1. Title: precise, clear, informative
2. Introduction: background, research question, hypothesis
3. Materials & Methods: what you used, what you did (step by step, past tense, passive voice: “was measured”)
4. Results: tables, graphs, objective facts (no interpretation)
5. Discussion: explain results, compare with hypothesis, sources of error, relevance
6. Conclusion: summary in 2–3 sentences
7. References (if applicable).

Imagine your report as a story: What did I want to know? How did I try to find out? What did I discover? Why does it matter?

Language Focus: Scientific Style

Use:

• Past tense: “The solution was heated to 80°C.”
• Passive voice: “The leaf was observed under the microscope.”
• Formal tone: Avoid “I/we” and casual words.

Informal → Scientific Style Practice

Quick practice: Rewrite“informal” sentences (for example, “We heated the water until it boiled” in scientific style (for example: “The water was heated to boiling point”).

1. We put the seeds in the soil and watered them every day.
2. First, we cut up the potato into small pieces and then we weighed them.
3. The potato was cut into small pieces and weighed.
4. We looked at the onion cells with the microscope and saw the nucleus.
5. The onion cells were observed under the microscope, and the nucleus was visible.
6. We mixed sugar and water and stirred it until it dissolved.

Write a Section: draft the Materials & Methods section of a real or recent experiment you did in the lab with Victoria. Here are some sentence starters:

“The experiment was carried out using…,” 

“First, … was measured,”

Reflection: Which section do you think is the easiest? The hardest? Why?

YOUR TASK: You must complete the rest of your lab report (Introduction, Results, Discussion, Conclusion) using class notes/data.