APPENDIX

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING LABORATORIES
The Professional Laboratory Report
Presentation
The report should be in neat handwriting or typewritten if you have access to such facilities. The total
length should not normally exceed the equivalent of 10 typewritten pages.
The following format should cover most cases:
Title Page
The lab title and number, date of experiment, and your lab group number.
Summary
A brief account of the experiment, the results and the main conclusions. The summary should be able
to stand alone from the report. It should be no more than about half a page of A4.
Introduction
This introduces the reader to the background of the experiment, and explains why the experiment is
useful. It should be in your own words and be brief.
Objectives
Simple statements of the goals of the experiment.
Equipment and Instrumentation
A description of the equipment and any software used.
Procedure
A brief description of how the experiment was conducted.
Theory
Include the theory behind any calculations, only if it differs from standard theory found in text books
otherwise just give a reference (see below).
Observations and Results
Report all the results obtained, and any important observations that were made whilst obtaining the
results. The results should be presented clearly, in tabular and, where possible, graphical form. This
should also include an error analysis i.e. an estimate of the uncertainty in the results.
Discussion
The discussion is one of the most important parts of the report. You should discuss the results obtained,
the trends that can be observed in the data, and the reasons for this behaviour. You should comment
on the sources and, where possible, the magnitude of any errors. The discussion should contain
constructive, well thought out, criticism of the lab and the main points you have learned. This section is
not brief, and could be up to two sides of A4 long.
Conclusion
The main deductions from the lab should be summarised.
References
A list of numbered references to the format given below
Appendix
The appendix contains background information that is not essential to the reading of the report. For
instance lengthy amounts of theory or calculation can be placed in the appendix.
The style of a professional report is very different from a typical A level report. You should note the
following points of style:
*

The report should be written in the passive voice. Use the past tense version for describing
what you did e.g. "...the readings were taken every minute" instead of "...we took readings
every minute". Sometimes the present passive is appropriate eg. "... it is shown by
Timoshenko [3] that ...".

All figures (including graphs) and tables should have a number and a caption: eg. Fig 3: Strain
Measurements; Table 5: Temperature variation for second sample. Thus all figures and
tables can be easily referred to from the body of the report.

All important equations should be numbered, again so you can refer to them:
the measured values of p into equation (5) yielded..."

"...substituting

If the equations you use are standard results from a textbook, it is not necessary to derive them in the
Theory section. It is sufficient to give a reference eg. "...It is shown by Timoshenko [3] that..." This
reference should be included in the references section.
*

References to textbooks are straightforward and should include: title, author, publisher, year
of publication and ISBN if possible.
e.g. 4. McComb, W.D. The Physics of Fluid Turbulence,
Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN 019856256X.
There should be a continuous prose thread running throughout the report. The following
piecemeal presentation is not acceptable:
Fluid pressure, p = 1.2 x 106 Pa
Internal diameter = 10.32 mm
Outer diameter = 10.96 mm

a = 10.32/2 = 5.16 mm
b = 10.96/2 = 5.48 mm
g = (a+b)/2 = 5.32 mm
f =

a2 p b2

b2 a2 r 2

(516
. x10 3 ) x1.2 x10 6
5.48

(1
=
5.32
(5.48 x10 3 ) 2 (516
. x10 3 ) 2

= 0.282 MPa
Instead it should be replaced by something like:
"Substituting the measured values of a, b and p given in Table 3 into eq. (5) gives a mean stress of 0.282
MPa"
*

SI units should be used throughout. Common mistakes include:

- using upper case instead of lower case letters eg. kN and Hz are correct, KN and HZ are not.
- writing 'sec' instead of s
- not observing the 'multiples of a thousand' rule according to which km, m and mm are
acceptable but cm are not.
- writing kW of energy instead of kWh.
- writing "weight in kg" instead of "mass in kg" or "weight in kgf".

OA Olatunbosun
The writing of the professional laboratory report will account for 10 hours of private study time.
LABPROFREP. OAO