LOG BOOKS and LAB REPORTS

William J. Devenport

Adapted by Wade Pulliam

1. Introduction

Careful logging of all the details of an experimental test, and then the reporting of that test in written form is an integral part of high quality engineering work. The purpose of the report is public. It is to communicate what was learned to the rest of the company, the profession or (in the case of open research) the whole world so that others can use and benefit from the knowledge created (and give you the credit). This is how progress is made. Of course, it also makes reporting scary - if you report bad data and thus incorrect conclusions a lot of people will know or, even worse, will be mislead. This is where the log book comes in. The log book is a private document, recorded during the test. This is where you write down why you made all the decisions you did, what you forgot (and remembered) to do, what you did and didn't believe and why. It is where you put, or reference, all the results, photos, recordings of conditions, and even irrelevant details that, just maybe, may not end up being so irrelevant. The log book is the private documentation that allows you to be confident about your results and what they mean, and to defend those results if there is ever a question.

During each of the experiments, your group is expected to record a log book. In the week following each experiment, you write up an individual lab report on the experiment. Together these determine your grade. The following are general guidelines for the preparation of these documents.

2. Log Books

A log book is like a detailed diary of your group's activity during an experiment. Before attending experiment 1, you should examine the sample log book so you can see the kind of reporting that is expected. During the first experiment your instructor will act as group leader and give you as much advice and help as you need to create your first log book.

The sample log book illustrates what kind of details should be recorded in the log book. For example,

Experiment title, date, group members present + contact info must be listed at the top of the first sheet of the log book.
Explanation of how the test was organized, who carried out which part (so you know who to talk to later if you need to clarify something)
Diary of each step, each problem or concern.
Lists of apparatus, or corrections/additions to items listed in the manual. References to websites or web documents, like the manual, can be made.
Tables of numerical results recorded during the experiment, and analysis performed during the experiment.
Diagrams that illustrate set ups you put together, dimensions you measured, problems encountered.

Log books are submitted, by the group, as copies with the lab report. If group members want further time to add annotations to the log book an extension to the end of the day on which the experiment was performed may be granted at the discretion of the instructor. Log books are graded out of a total of 10 points on only 3 items:

Required items included (2 points)
Completeness, compared to what was actually done, said, obtained, used in experiment. Experiment could be repeated exactly based on book. (4 points)
Can reasonably be understood (4 points)

3. Lab Reports

Grade sheets, explaining how credit will be assigned for the reports are delineated on the syllabus (20% - Preliminary Calculations, 10% - Log Book, and 70% Lab Report). There are two sample reports that you can review (but not copy from) as an example. ModelReport.pdf by Albert Q. Einstein is intended as just that. It is a model report written on the basis of the sample log book Albert would easily get 100%. NotSoGoodReport.pdf by Isaac W. Newton is also what it sounds. Isaac belongs to a different lab group to Albert and so did a slightly different, but just as good, experiment. Isaac's rather poor report has been graded. You can see Isaac would have gotten a D

General requirements common to all reports are listed below.

A. Submitting Reports
All reports (including text, drawings, tables, appendices etc.) should be printed on standard white, unlined 8-1/2 x 11 inch paper and submitted to your instructor within one week (of classes) of the completion of the experiment. Typing should be double spaced and use 12-point Times Roman font.

B. Honor Code
Report writing must be the work of the individual student. Copying from other students, from old reports, or from any other material that is not your own is forbidden. If you wish to include material from the lab manual you must rewrite it in your own words.

C. Consistency with log book
The results presented in your report must be consistent with those submitted with your groups log book (though conclusions and interpretations are whatever you think is appropriate). Of course, preliminary analysis in a log book may turn out later to be in error. In that case, report on the corrected version, and add a footnote of explanation in your report.

D. Title Page
Every report must have a title page (see figure 1). This should be the first page and should contain the following eight items:
a) Experiment number
b) Title. The title should be brief and to the point. It is the single most important piece of information appearing on the front cover. It should be spelled out fully, with no abbreviations, all in capital letters.
c) Author name. Prefaced by "Submitted By:" The recommended form is: first name, middle initial, last name. Example: WILLIAM P. HARRISON, JR.
d) Department name and address.
e) Date submitted. The date on which the report is actually turned in to the laboratory instructor (not the date the report was due).
f) Date experiment performed.
g) Instructor in charge of running the experiment
h) Honor code pledge (use the exact text appearing in figure 1). You must sign the pledge in the printed version of your report.

E. Figures
Your lab report will undoubtedly contain a number of figures. Figures should be numbered consecutively and all figures must be referenced from the written report. Each figure must include an explanatory title (e.g. 'Figure 3. Photograph of the Clark Y Airfoil Mounted in the Test Section of the 3-foot Open Jet Wind Tunnel') positioned beneath the figure. Figures must be self-explanatory so, as far as possible, the reader can understand the figure without referring to the text where you describe it (you still need the text though). In many cases this means adding labels - labels can easily be added to photographs or other figures using common drawing tool software.

Graphs can be drawn in Excel. However, note that the default form of graphs produced by Excel, while fine for the preliminary analysis of a log book, is not suitable for reports. The file ' HowToPlot.xls ' gives a specific example of how to turn a basic Excel plot into a report quality graph. The following requirements are illustrated in this example:

Measured data should, in general be plotted as distinct points, with no lines, since it is the points that were actually measured. Lines should only be added if they represent something else, e.g. a regression fit or the result of a theoretical prediction.
Color should be avoided unless absolutely necessary, as reports are almost always printed or copied in black and white. Colored backgrounds in particular detract from the clear presentation of the data.
Grid lines should only be used if needed in which case they should be included for both axes, and shown in gray or as dashed lines so as not to be confused with axis lines, or annotations on the plot.
Axes should have proper scales and show major and minor divisions. A proper linear scale is one in which both major and minor divisions are in units of 1,2 or 5 x 10^n, where n is an integer. Tick marks should point outwards and at least 5 major divisions should appear on each axis. If reasonable, axes should cross at zero. If not reasonable a note should be made in the figure or axis title (e.g. "note false origin on displacement axis").
Axes titles should include the name and/or symbol of the plotted quantity and its unit, in a font consistent with the rest of the report.
The legend should appear within the axes, if possible without obscuring data. There should be no box drawn around graphs.
If estimates of the accuracy of the data are available and comparable in scale to the size of the quantity, the error magnitudes can be shown using error bars.

F. Tables
Data essential to the report (such as uncertainty estimates and results of key calculations-not lists of raw data) may best be presented for clarity in the form of tables. Tables should be numbered consecutively and should appear in the body of the report, or immediately following the references. Abbreviations and symbols may be used, if defined in the text or in a list of symbols. The tables should be complete in themselves; i.e., explanatory notes should be placed in footnotes rather than requiring the reader to refer back to the report text for explanatory material.

G. References
References should be listed after the conclusions section. List here all books, reports, etc. referred to in the text (including the lab manual). Include names of authors, title, name of journal or publisher (in the case of a book), volume number, page number and date¹ used or consulted in preparing this laboratory report. There are several reference lists in this manual any of which may be used as a model. In the text references should include only the authors' name(s) and the date, e.g. Smith (1987), Jones and Launder (1974), Davidson et al. (1990).

H. Other items.
You may be instructed to, or wish to, add the following items to a report:

(a) Abstract

The abstract should be written as a single paragraph 100 to 200 words in length. It should be a summary (not an introduction) and complete in itself (no references to other parts of the report or the work of others). The abstract should indicate the subjects dealt with in the report and should state the objectives of the investigation. The most important observations and conclusions of the experiment must be stated in summary form. Readers should not have to read the report to understand the abstract. The abstract, though it appears first in the report, should be written last by the author, after all other parts of the report have been completed.

(b) List of symbols and definitions

All symbols which appear in the report should be included in this listing. Also, the units to be used with any dimensional symbol must accompany that symbol in the listing. "Definitions" here refer to any basic mathematical relations that define quantities to be used in the report.
Example:

	SYMBOLS AND DEFINITIONS
H	total enthalpy, CpT + u²/2, m²/s²
i	hot-wire current, amps
1	distance measured along shear layer, mm
Re	Reynolds Number, V D/
T	temperature, ^oC

__________________
¹ Arrange the references in alphabetical order by author.

EXPERIMENT NO. 3

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF

THE FLOW PAST A CIRCULAR CYLINDER

Submitted By:

WILLIAM P. HARRISON, JR.

AEROSPACE AND OCEAN ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY

BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA

5 APRIL 2002

EXPERIMENT PERFORMED 22 MARCH 1990

LAB INSTRUCTOR: ANDREW S. SMITH

Honor Pledge:

I have neither given nor received unauthorized assistance on this assignment.


______________ Student Signature	__________ Student Number	______________ Date

FIGURE 1. EXAMPLE OF TITLE PAGE