Writing a Biology Report Lab

Students of colleges and universities who are taking AP Biology or a general biology course, at some point will have to do laboratory experiments. Its process is very important, but what is even more important is the final report. What does that mean? Upon completion of these steps, you’ll also have to present your results.

Why do you need it? This report is necessary because it shows how you performed your experiment, what did you manage to understand, how useful was that experimentation process for you. And, of course, your teachers are interested in your opportunity to convey all these conclusions in one nice report. 

That’s why you may need some help in this way. And we’re ready to provide you with simple instructions on how to write a lab report for biology. So let’s start!

Format of the report

Why do you, your colleagues and your teachers need to see this work prepared? It is because of the thorough analysis of the experiment shows how successful was that process. Have you understood all the things that you had studied during that period? If yes, you can show that with ease. And the first your task is to specify requirements. Without it, you can write anything cool but totally useless. Spare your time and succeed.

If you need to write a lab report, there are different kinds of formats. Let’s consider a typical structure. 

Abstract

It depends on your instructor, but most of them require that you include a brief summary of your lab experiment that consists of its purpose, the issue, methods you’ve used for tackling it. This section is called abstract. It generally comes exactly after the title. But you should compose it only when your work will be completed to make all the results clear.

Successful example of an abstract

Remember, that you should give just a precise summary. Abstract doesn’t get into much detail, you can write 1-2 sentences of each mentioned methods, procedures, results of your experiment. Imagine how would other people read it, your task is to give them a clear picture. For this case you can rely on one from these 2 formats:

• Informational. It should be brief, about 200 words, but pithy;
• Descriptive. This one is even more concise, about 100 words. State your purpose and methods and don’t touch the conclusion. You’ll have the opportunity to tell about your findings later.

And now is the time for the next section. It is called the introduction.

Introduction

In theory, the introduction is what your report should begin with. With your plans, goals, expectations. But in reality everything is different and you’ll write your introduction as the last part. Of course, the topic and the purpose of your biology experiment are known in advance, but sometimes students can’t understand them completely before they finish the work. How can you make your introduction perfect?

• make it short enough, no point in bringing up arcane stuff;
• adumbrate facts and references;
• use lecture note;
• don’t forget about specified terminology;
• just describe, without proving anything.

Start with an explanation of why this particular study was undertaken, continue with a brief summary and finish up with a statement of the determined issue.

It would be nice if you find a good example to inspire by. We have a nice sample for you. 

Writing an Introduction, ask yourself:

• What was your big question?
• Why were you asking it?
• Which answers do you have now?
• Are you satisfied with them?
• How did the methods that you’ve used help you?
• What and why did you expect? (Your predictions and hypotheses).

Methods and Materials

During the study, you will use different materials and involve particular methods to perform it successfully. But don’t think it’s enough just to record a list of them. It would be too easy. You should determine when exactly, how and for what you used these methods and materials. It is not necessary to tell in detail, but it’s up to you. Just make sure that you’ve described enough to help someone else with the same experiment. Imagine that you’re writing not a report, but instructions. It will show you the right direction.

We have prepared a sample to inspire by.

References are obligatory in this section, as you didn’t design the lab yourself. That’s why it is important to take the credit, concise explanation of materials and procedures. You can also add a small figure if a procedure involved a bit complicated setup.

Results

So, how was your experiment? Are you satisfied with the results? Can you explain them in a clear way to your little sister or grandmother? If yes, you’re ready for the next step in your plan, for results. Don’t underestimate the weight of this section!

It’s interesting, but as you write an introduction, in the end, you can write about your final statements in the early beginning. You may not include them in the report, but they are necessary to compare with your expectations.

What is important at this stage?

• Don’t be verbose, wisely tell the important facts;
• Try to organize the information logically;
• Do not rush! You’ll have enough time and space to tell about the methods you’ve used.

The results section is needed to describe patterns that you’ve figured out during your lab experiment. Make these trends interesting for your readers.

Our sample for you:

Remember that without good Results, you cannot write a logical Discussion (the next section). 

Discussion

After summing your results, it’s time to start writing the discussion. In this section you have to write what do you think about the conducting of the experiment, to share these thoughts with your reasons. The discussion is considered to be the interpretation of your results. Now you should think “why”, not “what”.

Try to think, which results have you expected and whether the actual ones were surprising for you. Make an analytical comparison, using the knowledge you got. Write in the Discussion some details about your results. Whether they matched to your initial thesis, possible options. It’s no need in proving or disproving your idea. Be original and find an interesting statement to conclude. 

It’s also necessary to convince the reader that you are interpreting the information fully and intelligently.

Citing sources

It is necessary to include all the references you’ve used. It goes about:

• books;
• articles;
• reports;
• researches.
• different manuals.

Everything that you used during writing should be included. 

Writing about the book, include all the details available. It’s the title, name of the author, year and place of publication. Mention the edition and publisher name. 

The same information is needed for journal articles, etc. Discuss this with your teacher, because different instructors can have different citation formats. And you should choose the appropriate one. 

Proofreading 

The last but not the least stage is proofreading. Some students find this part the hardest one, but sometimes it is even more important than others. You can discover essential mistakes or something you haven’t mentioned before. That’s why it is better to make time to proofread all your reports. Get enough sleep before doing this for greater effectiveness.

What can you do now?

• Use an appropriate font;
• Make sure your margins are not less than 5 inches;
• Check the correctness of page numbers;
• Include headings;
• Don’t forget about additional info and your full name. 

Reread your work mindfully and make sure there no mistakes (logical, spelling and grammar). Proofreading also helps to define if you followed all the requirements. The appropriate style, format, cited all the references if you kept focusing on what will answer you’re an essential question. During this stage, you need to prepare a title list, according to your instructor’s requirements. 

Biology lab report help

In some colleges or universities, students don’t work alone, they have a team or a partner to gain better results during the experiment. But it doesn’t mean that you can prepare your biology lab report in a team, it is always an individual assignment. And it should be unique, well-written, structured and logical. However, if you still have some difficulties with this part of the experiment, our biology lab service can help you. Our professionals will provide you with a perfect report. We offer quite cheap prices and work only with extremely qualified writers, that’s why we guarantee a result. We use anti-plagiarism software to clean all the works up. Just order a paper on biology and it will exceed your expectations!