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ME260W Lab Report Preparation GuidelinesDepartment of Mechanical Engineering

University of Connecticut

Storrs, Connecticut

Past experience shows that even the best students often do not present a wellwritten, clear labreport which is a significant input towards their final grades in this course! "he weighting factorof the lab reports is #$%, greater than that of the exams! &t is very important to ma'e an extra

effort to document your report in a meaningful format! "he following is a guide for the students

to prepare their lab reports!

(! )our report must be prepared using a word processor such as Microsoft *ffice +ord or

euivalent! -andwritten reports and.or handwritten sections in the report are not acceptable!

/! )our report must starts with a cover.title page following the format of the sample cover

page provided on the course website!

0! )our report must be in grammatically correct English with due attention paid to writing

style recommended by the 1SME 1uthor2s 3it!

4! 5asic format reuirements are listed below! 1ny deviation will result in grade deduction!

a! 6o more than 12 pages7excluding cover page and 1ppendices8!b! Use (!# line spacing!

c! Use (/pt font, "imes 6ew 9oman or 1rial type face are recommended!

d! Use /# mm 7(:8 margins all the around each page!e! Page must be numbered; the page follows the cover page should be numbered

Page (!

f!

Cover Page

Provide report title, course number and name, author?s name, instructor?s name, and date

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Abstract 7less than @ of a page8

Must be in paragraph format

Do 6*" rewrite the ob=ectives from the lab handouts

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&f you put a graph in the 9esults section, explain.discuss it! &f a graph has nothing to be

explained or discussed, it should probably not be there in your report! Plot data as much

as possible 7charts are better viewed than tables8 and use S& units!

Conclusion 7less than @ of a page8

1ny significant results of the experiment should be pointed out in this section! "hissection includes comparison of theoretical and experimental results 7usually in percent

difference8! 1ny positive statement concerning the results should be made! 7i.e!, 7a8 thisexperiment correctly represents the physical conditions of the problem; 7b8 the data

collected may be used with an expected error less than BBBBB percent8! "his is another

section of the report that may be read by many people if the abstract is interesting!

Reerences

Must be present, and be listed and numbered;

1ll sources where you draw information must be ac'nowledged in the

text;

Use standardiAed formats suggested in the 1SME 1uthor2s 3it! Must be published information, e.g!, boo's, papers, websites, etc!

People are notreferences, neither are previous lab reports!

Appendi&

&nclude any additional information such as> computer programs, flow charts, euipment

descriptions, raw data sheets, sample calculations, lengthy, nonessential derivation orillustration, etc! "he complete calculations for at least one set of readings must be shown

in detail in an appendix entitled Sample Calculations!

! )our report will be graded with following evaluation system> *verall uality 7#%8

1c'nowledgment of existing 'nowledge 7#%8

Completeness of reported wor' 7#%8

Correctness of reported wor' 7($%8

9eference 1ppendix 7#%8

Clarity in writing, figures, tables, etc! 7#%8

9eport organiAation 7#%8

"heoretical analysis 7(#%8

Experimentation 7(#%8

Data interpretation discussion 7($%8

1bstract 7($%8

Conclusions 7($%8

F! *ther remar's

Do not restate whatever is in the handout in your report;

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Since your report will be read by other people 7mostly outside people8, it

has to be easily understandable so that an engineer can redo the experiment from

your report!