How to Write a Lab Report
Most marks lost on lab reports aren't lost on the science. They're lost because interpretation ended up in the results, the method couldn't be repeated from the description, or the references were formatted from memory. Here's what belongs in each section — and what doesn't.
The structure: IMRaD, plus three
A lab report follows the same skeleton as a published scientific paper. The four core sections are known as IMRaD — Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion — and they're wrapped by a title, an optional abstract, and a reference list:
- Title — what was tested, specifically
- Abstract — the whole report in ~100–200 words (if required)
- Introduction — why the experiment was worth doing
- Method — what you did, in enough detail to repeat
- Results — what happened, without explanation
- Discussion — what it means
- References — every source you cited
That order is how it's read, not how it's best written. Draft the method and results first — they're the most factual and the easiest to start. Then the discussion, then the introduction (which is much easier once you know what you found), and write the title and abstract last.
Title
A good title names the variables. Compare a vague title with a specific one:
Weak: Enzyme Experiment
Better: The Effect of Temperature on Catalase Activity in Potato Tissue
Introduction
The introduction narrows like a funnel: the general area, what's already known, the gap or question that remains, and finally your aim and hypothesis. Keep it to a few paragraphs, and cite the background claims — this is where most of a lab report's references live.
Enzyme activity is temperature-dependent, rising with kinetic energy until denaturation begins (Author, 2021). Optimum ranges have been established for several plant catalases, but few undergraduate protocols test the point of decline directly. This experiment measured catalase activity across 10–70 °C to identify the temperature at which activity begins to fall.
Method
The method is a blueprint, not a recipe you're asking the reader to follow. It should contain enough detail — quantities, concentrations, equipment, timings, controls — that someone else could reproduce the experiment and get comparable data. Write it in the past tense, because it already happened:
Not: Heat the solution until it boils.
Yes: The solution was heated to boiling and held for 60 s.
The passive voice question
This is where students get contradictory advice, and both sides are real. Many science lab manuals require the passive voice and no personal pronouns, on the grounds that it keeps the focus on the procedure. APA Style says the opposite. Section 4.16 of the Publication Manual (7th ed.) encourages first-person pronouns and explicitly tells writers not to refer to themselves in the third person, because "the author" creates ambiguity about who actually did something. APA also recommends the active voice generally.
The resolution is simple: your unit guide or lab manual wins. General style advice is the default only when your department hasn't specified one.
Results
Present the data. Do not explain it. That single rule fixes most structural problems in student reports — the sentence "this suggests that…" belongs one section further down.
Report your findings in prose and support them with tables and figures, referring to each one in the text before it appears. If you're formatting in APA 7:
- The table or figure number (e.g.
Table 1) goes above it, in bold, flush left. - The title goes one double-spaced line below the number, in italic title case.
- Notes go below, for abbreviations, copyright attribution, or what an asterisk means.
- Anything visual that isn't a table — a graph, photo, or diagram — counts as a figure.
Tables and figures may be embedded in the text right after they're first mentioned, or placed on separate pages after the reference list. Either is acceptable in APA 7; pick one and be consistent.
Discussion
Now interpret. A discussion that earns marks does four things: states whether the results supported the hypothesis, explains why in terms of the underlying science, relates the findings back to the literature cited in the introduction, and names the limitations honestly. Unexpected results are not a failure — an unexplained unexpected result is.
Shift into the present tense here. What you did is past; what the findings mean is still true now.
References
Which style you use depends on the discipline, not on the fact that it's a lab report: APA is common in psychology and biology, IEEE in engineering and computer science, and many chemistry departments have their own house style. Whatever you use, every in-text citation needs a matching entry in the reference list, and vice versa.
Paste a DOI into our free citation generator to autofill the details, then copy a correct reference and in-text citation in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard or IEEE.
A last check before you submit
Read your results section and delete any sentence that explains something. Read your method and ask whether a classmate could repeat the experiment from it alone. Then open every reference and confirm it exists — if any of your background reading came via an AI assistant, that step is not optional, because models invent plausible-looking references that fall apart the moment a marker searches for them.
Write it up with sources you can actually open
CiteGood drafts from real papers and formats every citation for you — nothing invented, nothing to double-check.
Try CiteGood free →Frequently asked questions
What are the sections of a lab report?
Title, abstract (if required), introduction, method, results, discussion, and references. The four middle sections are the IMRaD structure — Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion — used across the natural sciences, engineering and the social sciences.
Should a lab report be written in passive voice?
It depends on who is marking it. Many science lab manuals require the passive voice and no personal pronouns ('The solution was heated'). APA Style takes the opposite position: Section 4.16 of the Publication Manual encourages first-person pronouns and tells writers not to refer to themselves in the third person. Your unit guide overrides general style advice — check it before you draft.
What tense should a lab report be in?
Describe what you did and what happened in the past tense — APA recommends the past or present perfect for reporting research that has already been carried out. Switch to the present tense in the discussion when you interpret what the findings mean, because the implications are still true now.
Does a lab report need an abstract?
Not always. Many undergraduate lab reports skip it, while journal-style reports require one. Check your unit guide, and if an abstract is required, write it last — it summarises purpose, method, key results and conclusion in roughly 100–200 words.
What is the difference between the results and the discussion?
Results present what you found and nothing more: the data, the statistics, and the tables and figures, described in words but not explained. The discussion is where you interpret those findings, compare them to what the introduction predicted, acknowledge limitations, and say what follows.