Lab Reports Analysis
Adeeb Ahmed
City College of New York
Writing for Engineering, ENG 21007
Julianne Davidow
3/25/22
Rhetorical Analysis of Two Lab Reports
Introduction
Lab reports are written for the purpose of presenting your information easily to people who would like to understand your research and discoveries. There are certain guidelines that lab reports must abide by in order to fulfil its duty properly. These eight components include: title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and references. Following these is essential for a successful lab report so the audience can understand that you have successfully researched and understood the topic you are presenting. Based on what Mike Markel discusses in chapter 19 of his book “Technical Communication”, I will be analyzing two lab reports in this paper to see if they properly adhere to these guidelines and successfully fulfill their purpose. The two lab reports are “The Synthesis of Benzopinacolone From Benzophenone” by Joe Student, and “Laboratory Findings in Covid-19 Diagnosis and Prognosis” by Atieh Pourbagheri-Sigaroodi, Davood Bashash, Fatemeh Fateh, and Hassan Abolghasemi.
Title
The title is required to be something informative, to let the readers know what they are getting into. Both titles give a sense of what the report will be discusses, “The Synthesis of Benzopinacolone From Benzophenone” Student et al. (2010) gives a clear idea of the scientific procedure they are going to discuss with specific names. “Laboratory Findings in Covid-19 Diagnosis and Prognosis” Fateh et al. (2020) is also very clear with what is it discussing, the diagnosis and prognosis of covid cases and findings. The first one is not an example of a good title as it uses words that not everyone can understand. Markel’s book goes into detail on how using general words which the audience is more likely to understand would make a better title.
However, the second lab report does a much better job of helping the reader understand what the article is discussing since it has a longer more descriptive title, compared to the first one which only mentions synthesis
Abstract
The abstract is basically used as a quick summary of the entire lab report. It is important to include an abstract since these reports tend to be very long and having a section that is simple and goes straight to the point is essential to help the audience be on track. It differs from an introduction since it is much vaguer and can be understood by almost anyone. Fateh’s paper has a decent abstract that works as a table of contents and summarizes each section in the simplest way possible. However, the table of contents mentioned in the abstract don’t follow the same order that the rest of the lab report follows, which can be misleading and confusing to the audience. The second lab report by student on the other hand, has no abstract in their lab report, which can be very bad especially for the audience who wants to get an idea of what they are getting into. This could be because the author believed the introduction covered this, but either way it is missing. Due to this, the first lab report by Fateh does a better job at the Abstract.
Introduction of the Two Lab Reports
The introduction is an extremely important section in the lab report that lays out the foundation for the rest of your paper. First, the topic and hypothesis are stated as well as the goals that the report aims to achieve. It gives context information on the subject at hand along with the things the reader should know before reading the rest of the paper such as what experiments will be conducted, why the issue is being explored, the procedures that were performed, etc. The first paper by Student does a good job at this. They successfully meet the basic requirements by going over the purpose and goal of the report, the experiments they will cover, and the steps they will take to get their results. The second lab report by Fateh however, does a much better job at this. His team and him are able to give a ton of background information and specifically address everything they will cover in the paper. They provided a lot of data regarding the Covid-19 topic which can make the audience more understand the paper and have much more interest it in. The second paper once again does this part better.
Materials and Methods
The materials and methods section are used to explain the procedures and equipment used during the experiment. It is important to be clear and concise in this section so that the audience can understand how you obtained your results following this section. According to Markel, the procedures in this section must be explained so simply in a way that anyone could replicate it without any major knowledge or experience. The first lab report explains the procedures fairly straight forward along with easily outlining the steps. The materials used however are not mentioned as well as they could be, which can cause the audience to have many questions. The second lab report has much more information and clear steps as well showing how they went about their process, but similar to the first paper, they fail to fully complete the requirements for a perfect materials and methods section, lacking in some areas. Both sections do good but could have improved a lot more if they were to go more into detail regarding the materials and equipment used.
Results/Discussions
The results sections present all the information gathered during the experiment and presents it to the audience. This section is pretty straight forward as the only purpose is to present what was derived from the procedures. The discussions sections follow the results section and is where the results are explained more and discussed. This is the section where everything is clarified and cleared up so that the audience won’t have any problems understanding anything or have any unanswered questions. Student’s paper has a very strong results and discussions section, with a variety of images and explanations that make it very easy for the audience to understand. Their results prove that Benzophenone can react with 2-propanol to form benzo pinacol in sunlight. Fateh’s paper also has very strong results and discussions sections. They also have many images and diagrams along with explanations under each one. Through their results they discuss that PCR is the best form of Covid testing to find strains. Both papers are equally strong and successful in these two sections.
Conclusion and References of the Two Lab Reports
Having a conclusion is essential to have a successful lab report. It is where everything that has been said in the report is summarized, and it is basically what wraps up the entire paper. With a weak conclusion, even a strong lab report can collapse. The references section provides citations to what the authors used in their paper. Without this they would be plagiarizing, and it is important to state where you got your information from as well for others looking at or checking your paper. Student does a great job at concluding their paper as well as citing all the references used in the correct format. Fateh and his team also end off very strongly. All the authors summarize everything that happened in their paper from start to finish without being too informative, wrapping it up nice and neat for the audience. I would have to say that the authors of both papers equally do a great job with these two sections as well.
Conclusion
Having a successful lab report requires eight steps to be followed as stated by Mike Markel in his book “Technical Communication”: title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussions, conclusion, and references. The two papers are “The Synthesis of Benzopinacolone From Benzophenone” by Joe Student, and “Laboratory Findings in Covid-19 Diagnosis and Prognosis” by Atieh Pourbagheri-Sigaroodi, Davood Bashash, Fatemeh Fateh, and Hassan Abolghasemi all follow these elements well. After analyzing both, I have concluded that although each paper has its’ strengths and weaknesses, overall, the paper that follows Markel’s elements the best would be the second paper. Each of their sections is very well written and barely has any mistakes, compared to the first paper that has some missing sections. Overall, lab reports are important to explain findings in research to any type of audience, and with these eight steps, anyone can write a successful report.
References
Fateh, Fatehmah, et al. “Laboratory Findings in COVID-19 Diagnosis and Prognosis.” Clinica Chimica Acta; International Journal of Clinical Chemistry, Elsevier B.V., 1 Nov. 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7426219/.
Student, Joe et al. ”Synthesis of Benzopinacolone from benzophenone.” https://www.pittstate.edu/office/_files/documents/organic-chemistry-sample-lab-report.pdf Markel, Mike et al. “Techincal Communication.”
Self-Reflection
This rhetorical analysis of two lab reports allowed me to achieve the course learning outcomes of this class. I was able to explore and analyze a variety of genres. When searching for a lab report that would be appropriate for this assignment and have some of the elements necessary for me to analyze it, there were plenty of genres I had to search through. Some were extremely long and informative, some were very simple and made for school assignments, and others had a balance which was perfect for this assignment. Analyzing each of these reports allowed me to choose the best ones to use. Another learning outcome was developing strategies for reading, writing, collaborating, revising, and editing. When reading and searching for reports, I had to plan it out where I would skim through each one and write notes about them. After this, I looked at my notes and took the report which suited my paper the best. When it came to the writing part, I strategized it by separating each element into categories and then putting the information into them. For example, I had a section for abstract, introduction, title, etc. Using this information from the reports I put bullet points under. When I started the final draft, this helped me a lot as I had the information necessary right in front of me. In terms of collaborating, I had to work with my classmates. They revised my paper and I revised theirs. In this process I genuinely got amazing feedback and help which improved my writing. My peers pointed out many grammatical errors, as well as things I could do better such as including more images or explaining things more thoroughly. Using their feedback, I edited my paper and revised it, making it much stronger than before. I was also able to practice the systematic application of citation conventions. For this assignment I was required to site my sources in APA format. Having no prior experience to this, I was fairly lost. However, after doing some research I learned the correct format of applying the citation and used it in my references section. When locating lap reports, I preferred to use sources from the internet over the library database. I had experience with the library database before, and although it is a great site, most of the material isn’t the most up to date. I searched for my reports on the internet, and some things I looked for were information and to avoid bias. I made sure that the information was accurate by comparing it to other reports and checking some information for myself. I also had to ensure that there was no bias, by confirming that the writing was strictly informative and that there were no opinions or false information inside of the reports. Eventually I just went with the lab reports provided in blackboard and used these methods on those.
Some strategies I used to approach this writing assignment was planning ahead of time and starting a template to plan and get my ideas together. I have used this process before and so far, it has proven to work well. When I got this assignment, I first started planning. I went over many ideas with myself on how to organize and format this, and eventually believed that method one would be the best. This was because it was very simple and easy to read for the audience, having one element as a section then the two papers being compared under, so the readers would not have to go back and forth. Once I had my idea, I created a template for this project. In that template, I divided it up into sections by elements that I needed to address in the paper, such as title, abstract, results, etc. In these sections I brainstormed and wrote down notes from the articles that I read. Once I was ready to do the final draft, the information was already laid out for me, which made it much easier to complete. This strategy is something I do not plan on changing so far as it seems to work well. Overall, these are the learning outcomes that I was able to achieve in the class, and the strategies that I used to complete this assignment.
