UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN

FACULTY OF ENGINNERING AND

GREEN TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING

General Guidelin
Guidelines
es for Lab Report Writing

Table of Content
1. Introduction
2. Laboratory Procedure and Control
2.1. Laboratory Equipment
2.2. Attendance Policy
3. Submission of the Lab Report
4. Report Format and Content
4.1 Cover Page
4.2 Objective
4.3 Introduction
4.4 Materials and Equipment / Apparatus
4.5 Experimental Procedure
4.6 Data Sheet and Results
4.7 Discussion
4.8 Conclusion
4.9 Citation in Text
4.10 Reference

Introduction

The experiments in this unit are designed to give Environmental Engineering students an
introduction to laboratory procedures for performing environmental science related experiments.
The purpose is to provide students with a deeper understanding of theoretical principles by
conducting experiments, observing phenomena, measuring physical, chemical and biological
parameters of environmental samples. New students are required to, read the General
Laboratory Guideline, attend the laboratory safety briefing and submit a safety form prior to
perform the first experiment.
General Laboratory Guideline can be viewed at:
http://www.utar.edu.my/osh/file/Student%20Laboratory%20Guidelines1(07.09.08).pdf (For
students)
A Guide to Writing an Engineering Laboratory (Lab) Report can be viewed at:
http://www.utar.edu.my/fes/file/Guidelines%20for%20Lab%20Report.doc
2

Laboratory Procedure and Control

Students have to learn to organize themselves into team groups, and to allocate
responsibilities among themselves. In some cases an individual will assume a leadership
role, while in other instances the same student will take a subordinate position. Students
are encouraged to become useful in both of these activities. It is imperative that each
team member thoroughly read the entire procedure before coming to the lab. Each
team member shall have reviewed the procedure in its entirety prior to beginning the lab,
and shall understand the objectives, operations, and hazards that may be encountered
during the experiment.

2.1

Laboratory Equipment / Apparatus

All equipment and instrumentation shall be handled carefully to avoid damage
during experimental operations. At no time shall any equipment be relocated from its
position in the Lab. Operating instructions shall be strictly followed.

2.2

Attendance Policy
I.
II.
III.
IV.

Students are required to attend all lab session.

A student who misses a lab without any valid reason will receive a grade of zero
for the lab and any associated reports.
Swapping the lab session among the students is prohibited without prior Lab
Instructor approval.
Students who are late for more than 30 minutes will be barred to attend the lab
session.
3

Submission of the Lab Report

Students are required to perform the preparatory work prior to coming to the lab.
Each student will be responsible for preparing a report after completing each experiment.
The lab report shall be submitted to the Lab Officer within 7 days after the experiment
was conducted. The required content and format of the report are given in the following
sections. The lab report shall contain the following:

Objectives.

Introduction

Apparatus and Materials

Procedures

Data sheet with result

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

References

Report Format and Content

The report shall be either hand written or using word processing software. Text
shall be double-spaced, using 12-point font, Times New Roman font-type. Equation or
chemical structure may be hand-written.

4.1

Cover Page
The report shall have a cover page with the following information provided:

Logo of UTAR

Course

Subject and Code

Experiment Title

Date of Experiment

4.2

Name of Student

Student ID No

Year and Trimester

Lab Instructor Name

Objective
The objective or objectives should be stated at the beginning of the report. One or
two sentences are usually sufficient to summarize the purpose of the experiment.

4.3

Introduction
The introduction gives background information about the experiment. A good
introduction should state the problem and purpose of the investigation and the hypothesis
that will be tested. The introduction also shall provide brief description of the
experimental approach used to satisfy the objectives.

4.4

Materials and Equipment / Apparatus

A simple list with short description of the equipment or apparatus used in the
experiments is enough for this section.

4.5

Experimental Procedure
Experimental procedure explains how the experiment actually been carried in a
chronological order. Using the numbering structure, explain all the experimental steps
orderly. Experimental procedures must be written in passive form.

4.6

Data Sheet and Results

Data sheet consists of the experimental data obtained during the experiment, and
the data must be verified by the Lab Officer during the lab session. Student should apply
the calculations, graphs and tables to explain the results from the experiment. On a
further note, the graphical representation (graphs and tables) must be clearly labelled.
Example:
Figure 1: Effect of X on Y at the bottom of the graph and the label for the table should
be positioned at the top of the table.

4.7

Discussion
This part of the lab focuses on question of understanding. In this section student
should interpret the collected data and relate it to the hypothesis in the introduction.

Explain the significance of the results. If errors were made or additional research is
needed, explain in this section.
The flow chart in Figure 1 can be applied as a guideline to the student to write the
discussion section in the lab report.
Other strategies that can be applied in discussion are:

Compare expected results with those obtained.

Analyse the experimental error.

Explain the results in terms of theoretical issues.

Relate results to the objectives.

Compare your results to similar investigations.

What is the significance or meaning of results?

Analysis

What do the results

indicate?
What have you found?
Explain what you know
with certainty based on
your results and draw
conclusions?

Interpretation

What is the significance

of the results?
What ambiguities exist?
What questions might be
raise?
Find logical explanation
for problems in the data.

Example
Example
Steel has the highest yield
strength, followed by
brass and aluminum.
Copper has the highest
ductility, followed by
aluminum and steel.

Although the water samples

were received on 14th August
2000, testing could not be
started until 10 September
2000. It is normally desirably
to test as quickly as possible
after sampling in order to
avoid
potential
sample
contamination. The effect of
the delay is unknown.

Figure 1: Guidelines for discussion of experimental results.

4.8

Conclusion
The conclusions need to relate back to the objectives that had written. This section
summarizes the view, comment and judgment of the student regarding the results and
discussion towards the objective. Recommendations for further research can be included
after the conclusion.

4.9

Citation in Text
The most important consideration in citation of references is consistency.

The author-date system is used to provide information for readers to locate the source of
information listed in the alphabetical selected bibliography or references at the end of
thesis/dissertation. Examples are as below:
Table 1: Harvard Style In-Text Citations
Type of Source
Format
For journals with Example:
one author
i. Walker (2000) compared reaction times
ii. In a study of reaction times (Walker, 2000)
For journals with Example:
maximum
two i. A recent survey of perceptions of graduate students indicated the
primary barrier to obtain an advanced degree is writing the thesis (Smith
authors:
and Jones 2002); and
ii. Smith and Jones (2002) concluded from a survey of graduate student
perceptions that writing the thesis is the primary barrier to obtaining a
degree.
Citation more than Example:
i. The variations in enzyme production might be due to the fact
two authors:
(Ahmad et al., 1999)
ii. Ahmad et al. (1999) reported that the variations in enzyme production
might be due to the fact..

et al. can only be used in the text to replace authors name, full
listing of the authors name should appear in the References
section.

Multiple references i. The variations in enzyme production might be due to the fact
in a statement:
(Jones et al., 1992; Brown et al., 1993; Black et al., 1994; White et al.,
2011)
List the references chronologically by publication date (i.e., the earliest first).
4.10

Reference
The style and sequence or order of arranging elements within a reference for the
Harvard reference citation style indicated below:

Authors surname, authors first name or initial and Authors surname, authors
first name, year of publication. Title of article. Full Title of the Journal, Volume
number (issue or part number), pages (use pp).
Example:
i. For 1 to 2 authors
Appleman, M.M. and Terasart, W.I., 1975. Regulation of cyclic nucleotide
phosphodiesterases. Advances In Cyclic Nucleotide Research, 1 (5), pp. 153-162.
ii. For 3 to 5 authors
Hughes, J.C., Brestan, E.V. and Valle, L.A., 2004. .
iii. For more than 3 authors
Hughes, J. et al., 2004.
The order of listing references is according to alphabetical by authors surname.
The sequence or order of arranging the reference in the reference list for same author will
follow the chronological by same name and alphabetical by title. As with citing the
references in the thesis/dissertation text, the format used to list the references must be
consistent; each reference listed must be in the same format.
Example:
i. Same author, same year, different title:
Dave, R.L., 2004a. Managing information
Dave, R.L., 2004b. Multimedia management
ii. Same author different year:
Jones, L.S., 2004. Critical thinking about
Jones, L.S., 2006. Doing qualitative research
List the references chronologically by publication date (i.e., the earliest first).
Further information is available at:
http://www.utar.edu.my/fegt/index.jsp?fcatid=449&fcontentid=1922