In the world of engineering, the sharing of new information in a coherent and effective manner is essential. In addition, there needs to be a sense of trust and to have full transparency, one way of fulfilling this is through lab reports. Lab reports effectively provide information in a clear and coherent way that lists the way the experiment was done in order to have full trust and transparency with one another. When done correctly and most effectively, a lab report should have eight main components, the title, abstract, introduction, methods and materials, results, discussion, conclusion, and references; each having their own purpose and goal that when put together creates the perfect lab report. Lab reports are just the most practical and adequate form of sharing information with one another in a clear and organized form that makes the reading easy to understand. In order to grasp the essence of a lab report I will be comparing and contrasting two lab reports where I won’t focus on the valuable information of the lab report, instead my focus will be on the structure and layout of the two lab reports.

Lab report 1, Understanding seasonal migration of Shishamo smelt in coastal regions using environmental DNA has a clear title that immediately lets the reader know what the lab report will be about. Lab report 2, Metabolic engineering considerations for the heterologous expression of xylose-catabolic pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae has more of a confusing title. I would say the major flaw of this title is that in does not necessarily give the two variables in the experiment. In addition, it appears as if the writer is not even confident in their own work. By using the word “considerations” it seems like the writer is not confident that their work would even be valuable to the engineering world. It is as if saying “Oh yeah you can probably read up my lab report I think I might have some useful stuff there maybe.” Whereas lab report 1 uses the word “understanding” which shows greater confidence and it would appear that the writer has great knowledge of the information he is spreading. To say you understand something it means that you can fully grasp a topic mentally and explain its ins and outs. If I were curious about the information that lab report 2 has to offer, I would most likely try to find a different one solely based on the title.

In each of the lab reports I found the abstract sections to be very strong and clear, each providing the purpose and significance of the experiment, key findings, and a conclusion. Lab report 1 does a great job in hooking the attention of the reader with opening sentences explaining why the information of the lab report is important. Lab report 2 also does a great job in providing a little of background information and it also explains why the information in that lab report is important. Lab reports 1 and 2 also clearly identify how they conducted their experiments by using sequential words, and they both also state results of the experiment and the conclusions they drew.

In the introduction section of the lab reports I think lab report 1 did a greater job. Lab report 1 once again repeated why the experiment is important and instead of fully repeating what they wrote in the abstract the author decided to give the reader a real-world example of why the information is so important. After reading that example I was really intrigued it did a fantastic job of grasping the readers attention. Lab report 2 also repeated why the information in the report is significant but after the opening sentence it felt like a complete copy of the abstract. The whole purpose of the introduction section is to really hook your reader’s attention and I feel that lab report 2 failed in doing so. I was mostly bored reading that introduction in all honesty, it repeated what the abstract said, and it again went into detail of each step of the experiment which is the job of the materials and methods section. One thing I do give lab report 2 is the use of its diagrams, the information of lab report 2 is dense and a bit complicated but using diagrams helps make sure the reader does not get too lost.

The materials and methods sections of both labs were very organized and coherent. Each step in the experiment was separated with its own subsection so we can follow along easily. Lab 1 even began with an ethical statement stating that they did not need permission to conduct their experiment showing the reader that they can replicate their experiment easily. Furthermore, both labs were very detailed, a lot of statistical numbers were used but it was not hard to follow along. The use of diagrams in both lab reports was great as a aid to the reader, in lab 1 it helped the reader visualize the migratory pattern of the animals they studied, and in lab 2 it helped the reader to receive the information in a clear organized manner. Lab report 2 was especially good in this as they would put in parentheses (Fig 2E) for example where it made sense and that way, we knew exactly which diagrams make sense for each section.

The results sections of both lab reports were done perfectly. Similar to the materials and methods sections, this section also had its own subsections that made it easy to follow along. Lab report 2 was surprisingly very organized and easy to read, I say surprisingly because in that experiment they tested many variables so I figured the results section would be a mess and hard to read. The use of subsections made it easy to identify the results of each variable tested and it kept the results organized. Lab report 1 was also very organized and implemented the use of subsection as well and as I mentioned before that helps keep the writing very organized and easy to follow. In each of the lab reports the results were brought up right away which I liked if you were only interested in the results you would not need to go deep diving to find them. In addition, each lab report went into detail as to why they believe they got the results they found which helps the reader understand the topic more even if they are not previously knowledgeable in that topic. Lastly each lab report used diagrams at the end of the results section that were constantly referred to in the writing which helped support the writer’s information to be understood.

In each lab report the discussion section did exactly what they should, they provided information as to why their study was significant and after taking their results into consideration, they were able to provide fresh insight. Both lab reports started off with more background information as to why their study was so important and in lab report 2, they prefaced it with saying they knew their experiment was a very difficult one. The body of the discussions were used to share more information that essentially were used to share the writer’s thoughts about the results they got. For example, they were able to agree or disagree with their original hypothesis and describe why they feel the way the do. Both lab reports were also great in referring the reader to the correct diagram where it made sense by including the figure number in parenthesis in the text.

Neither lab report had a separate clear conclusion section, instead they were incorporated in the discussion section as the last paragraph. Each lab report ended by explaining what they were able to accomplish, in lab report 1 they say they were able to provide new information about their topic and in lab report 2 they report that they couldn’t get the results they wanted. Even though lab report 2 did not get the results they desired, their information is still beneficial as it went into detail about how they conducted their experiment so now people know that their method will not produce the results they are looking for. In the world of science and engineering we know that the more people can work together by sharing their findings with one another the closer we get to getting the results we want so all in all I will say that lab report 2 is still highly valuable as it was written clearly and organized.

I found it interesting that both lab reports provided a “Supporting Information” section which is not one of the main eight components of a lab report but after reading both of these lab reports I think a “supporting information” section would be a great addition to the main components of a lab report. Each lab report used it as a section where they can refer to each diagram and explain it in more detail which overall is beneficial to the reader. Finally, each lab report ended with their acknowledgments and references that were clearly cited with links you can click on if you want to check out their sources. All in all, each lab report did a great job, they both incorporated the eight sections that a lab report should have, and both included an extra section that supports the information given in the diagrams. Throughout the entirety of the lab reports, I would say lab 1 did a greater job in staying clear and organized. This may be due to the fact that they only tested one variable whereas lab 2 tested several variables. After a while lab, 2 almost started feeling redundant but it was understandable as they made sure to mention that their study is very hard and nobody has ever found the results they are looking for so obviously they had to repeat themselves a couple of times. Although lab 1 was more clear and organized that does not mean that lab 2 did a bad job and it is not beneficial, both labs did what they had to do and explained their information in great detail while at the same time keeping everything organized