Rhetorical Analysis of A Lab Report
No matter what subject you are studying in college, you have definitely written a lab report at some point. Lab reports are meant to be quite informative and give the reader a good understanding of the topic they are reading about. While lab reports vary depending on whether the subject is science or humanities-related, both give information about a topic with evidence to support their claims. Most prominently, scientific lab reports are formal written reports that concisely give the results and observations from an experiment or study. As a result, lab reports need to have a level of consistency among them for the most effectiveness. In chapter 19 of Mike Markel’s book Technical Communication, it is important for lab reports to have the 8 elements of title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and references (2018). These elements serve as a checklist and foundation for a standard lab report to have. In the lab report titled “ Temperature and Pressure Measurements of an Ideal Gas That is Heated in a Closed Glass Container” (Dancy, 1999) that I will be analyzing today, these elements will be crucial.
Title
The title of a lab report, and any work in general, is important as it serves to hook the reader into reading and also is meant to give an idea of the work. This is said in chapter 19 of Merkels that the title should be informative enough to enable readers to decide whether the report interests them. Also, effective titles should be long according to Merkel and the lab report meets this criteria. The title “Temperature and Pressure Measurements of an Ideal Gas That is Heated in a Closed Glass Container” is a long, specific title that tells the reader exactly what the lab report will be about. All the information in the title is relevant to the topic, and there are no words for placeholders. The reader clearly knows that the report will be about the various temperature and pressures of gas in certain conditions by reading it. Alternatively, a title such as The Temperature of Gas in Glass would be a poor title as it is not specific enough about the lab report’s content. The simplistic, concise, and detailed title for the lab report effectively fulfills one of the first elements of a lab report.
Abstract
The abstract functions similarly to the title in that that it gives a preview of the information to be stated in further detail; however, instead of one broad statement like in the title, the abstract can be spread out through each segment of the report. According to Merkel’s textbook, “the abstract summarizes the entire report, mirroring its structure… each section is addressed in only a sentence or two. Because your abstract might be distributed more widely than your entire report, it should contain enough information so that your readers can quickly decide whether to locate and read the whole report”. Dancy’s lab report does exactly this: in each section of the report, it begins with a sentence or two outlining the segment. For example, the results and discussion section begins with “This section analyses the results of the experiment. The experiment went as expected with no unusual events that would have introduced error.” (Dancy, 1999). This brief abstract informs the reader about the section and detail about it so the reader stays informed on that end as well. So, in this case, both the preferred “informative abstracts” and “descriptive abstract” (Dancy, 1999) is given to the reader.
Introduction
The purpose of an introduction in any work, not just a lab report, is to inform the reader about what they should be expecting in the rest of the paper and in essence its purpose as well. As stated in Merkel’s textbook, “ The introduction is the section of the report in which you begin to establish that your work is important… the introduction should include a concise review of previous research relevant to your study…By placing your study in the context of previous research, you establish its significance”. With this noted, Dancy’s lab report introduces the topic by stating the experiment “ to study the relationship of temperature and pressure of an ideal gas (air) that was heated in a closed container” (Dancy, 1999). In addition, it also states the purpose of the experiment “is to test whether the ideal equation of state holds” (Dancy, 1999). From the introduction of this lab report, the reader is aware of the study, its purpose, and the structure of the lab report.
Materials and Methods
Materials and methods is a section of the lab report intended to give the lab report credibility and authenticity to ensure trust between the reader. In this section, it is crucial to “describe your methods in enough detail that another researcher could perform the same experiment using the same materials and methods. This characteristic, called replicability, is one of the foundations of the scientific method” (Merkel, 2018). Dancy’s lab report does exactly this, displaying the procedure needed to conduct the experiment step-by-step, even including how the values were calculated in context. In addition, lots of details were included in the procedures, not just a general step-by-step walkthrough. For example, Dancy gave the purpose of items such as “pressure transducer and thermocouple” used to “ measure the pressure and the temperature” (Dancy, 1999). Including proper units and their abbreviations like “voltage signals (in Volts)”, “pressure (kPa)” and “temperature (K)” (Dancy,1999) further helped the credibility of this report. These factors are crucial for the author, so as to not assume the reader’s knowledge, and give them all the details in the lab report. All in all, Dancy’s report definitely gave a concise, yet thorough section and fulfilled the qualities of the materials and methods element.
Results
The results section is important to discuss and statistically back up the claims made in your discussion. According to Merkel, in this section, you should “summarize the data relevant to the question or hypothesis you discussed in your introduction. Omit irrelevant data, but explain why you are doing so. When summarizing your data, help readers understand your findings by emphasizing major trends, magnitudes of values, associations, patterns of statistical significance, and exceptions”. I believe that Dancy’s lab report did a good job of this as it displayed various graphs and explained their significance to the reader. By describing that the “experiment went as expected with no unusual events” the author implied that the hypothesis was proven true. For each data point and graph, the author states its significance and leaves no information behind for the reader; this sets up his next segment in the discussion based on the results of the experiment.
Discussion
The discussion section is the interpretation of the results of the experiment, and the hypothesis is either further supported or unsupported by the observations made. In order to have the least biased discussion, Merkel’s textbook states to “support your argument with data from your results, and do not hesitate to discuss problematic data or “failed” experiments… sometimes a negative result or a failure to find a significant difference helps researchers create new knowledge in their field. If your results do not support your hypothesis, argue for rejecting your hypothesis” (Merkel, 2018). In fact, Dancy’s experiment results did not exactly yield the ideal results: the theoretical data and measured data revealed differences. Dancy observed, “the measured values of temperature are lower than the ideal values, and the measured values are not exactly linear”. On top of this he elaborated by giving potential reasons for such differences mentioning “precision error”, “ bias error” and potentially “a large temperature scale considered” (Dancy, 1999). This was a perfect execution of this element as Dancy mentioned “ possible explanations for the differences” (Merkel 2018) to help potential researchers avoid errors if conducting the same experiment.
Conclusion
Overall, the conclusion is meant to wrap things up, to “not introduce any new information” (Merkel, 2018), and to explain the significance of the lab report itself. I believe the author did this well as he stated how the hypothesis was a success, albeit suffering from differences “in the experimental graph of temperature versus and pressure and the theoretical curve of temperature versus pressure” due to “experimental errors” (Dancy, 1999). I believe concisely giving the conclusion was effective, yet the conclusion could use more of an explanation as to the significance of the experiment and what led the author to do such studies.
References/ Appendix
The lab report I viewed did not have references, however, it did have an appendix which serves An appendix, which follows the references, “the appropriate place for information that readers do not need to understand the body of your lab report. For example, an appendix might include long tables of measurements, specialized data, logs, analyses, or calculations” (Merkel 2018). Dancy included various graphs, tables, and calculations that supplement the results and discussion sections. Overall, the lab report “ Temperature and Pressure Measurements of an Ideal Gas That is Heated in a Closed Glass Container” (Dancy, 1999) did have some flaws and shortcomings in regard to the 8 elements of a lab report mentioned in Merkel’s textbook, the report was concise, informative, and a solid example of a scientific lab report.
References
Markel, M., & Selber, S. A. (2018). Technical Communication (12th ed.). Bedford/St. Martin’s, Macmillan Learning.
Temperature and Pressure Measurements of an Ideal Gas That is Heated in a Closed Glass Container Lab Report #2. (1999) Writing.engr.psu.edu.
http://writing.engr.psu.edu/workbooks/labreport2.html#appendix
Reflection
In the process of the analysis of these lab reports, I fulfilled the first learning outcome in reading and going through various lab reports in various fields including the medical field, engineering, and anthropology. In those, I chose one more related to scientific experimental analysis as I felt the way the lab report was structured and worded made it ideal for me to analyze thoroughly. In addition, I gained further knowledge about the structure of lab reports through reading chapter 19 of the textbook in order to break down the elements and understand how to better analyze the lab report I chose. Also, I used learning outcome 2 as I initially chose a lab report that was similar in nature but different but chose to scrap that in favor of this one. I also revised my paper in various stages of the process in terms of the format looking at the sample lab report analysis and other lab reports I researched on the web utilizing learning outcome 6. Formatting properly was key to my paper as the lab reports I analyzed had to be formatted in a certain way. Furthermore, I made sure to cite the authors of both the lab report and textbook I cited, utilizing Outcome 8. With my citations, I not only read them thoroughly in context to gain a better understanding of the content but I also compared the information to other sources on the web in order to make better interpretations, paraphrasing, and analysis in my paper for the elements to fulfill outcome 7. I used the search engine Google to make most of my research, while also initially looking at the databases that my professor provided to look for possible lab reports and gain information about them. In some ways, I wasn’t able to quite meet some of the learning outcomes as I didn’t quite collaborate with others in the process of producing this paper; common examples would be peer review, contacting my professor, and utilizing the writing center. To add on, I initially tried to write this more like a paragraph essay but I found titling each paragraph aligned to the element would be better suited and more organized. The lab report I chose and the sources I used had good credibility as they were all published by universities, meaning they were all academically focused and followed the procedures of an academic paper. Overall, by writing this paper I learned good skills about lab reports that I will surely use in the future in my science-related classes and the formatting will teach good organizational skills for my academic and professional career.
