For this paper an analysis of two different lab reports will be provided. The first report, titled Temperature and Pressure Measurements on an Ideal Gas That is Heated in a Closed Container, we will be calling it Report A for short. Report B will be the following report, titled Examination of Protozoan Cultures to Determine Cellular Structure and Motion Pattern. This essay will dissect the eight elements stated by the book Technical Communication that make up a lab report, while comparing and contrasting both reports to each other.

The first elements of a lab report are the title, the abstract, and the introduction. Both titles of Report A and Report B give an accurate depiction of what the contents of each paper will provide. In some cases, authors will choose not to include an abstract because they feel it is not necessary to their report, such as in Report A. The author opted to exclude an abstract and jumped straight into the introduction. I can say that this can be due to the brief length of the report, but also because the introduction serves a well enough background for this report that an abstract would have been unnecessary. The author clearly indicated their goal for the experiment they conducted, which was to test whether the ideal equation pV=mRT would hold. They did so by studying the relationship between temperature and pressure of an ideal gas that was heated in a closed container, as the title clearly indicated. Although they were clear on what would transpire in the experiment, the author did not state what their hypothesis for this report would be. In the section of Results and Discussions however, they stated that the results coincide with their expectations, indicating that their hypothesis would have been that the equation would hold.

After the introduction comes the meat of the lab report in the sections of Materials and Methods, Results, then Discussion. As I mentioned in my annotations, in Report A the author decided to name the section Procedures as opposed to Materials and Methods, however, they still served the same purpose. The materials used in this experiment were a pressure vessel with a volume of 1 Liter, a pressure transducer, a thermocouple, and the air. In the experiment the air was heated up via voltage signals (in Volts) produced by the transducers, that were calibrated to the temperature (K) and the pressure (kPa) of the air. As shown, the author made sure to include the specified units as well. The purpose of the Materials and Methods section is for this experiment to be able to be recreated by others in order to produce the same, or perhaps different in some cases, results.

Instead of having two separate sections for the Results and Discussion, in this report the author summarized them into one. They stated that the results were as expected, showing that the data corresponds with their hypothesis. The author explained that the data they found were input into a table and the third and fourth columns, which included the values of the temperature and pressure, were used to create the graphs shown. The differences in the graphs show that ideal scenarios vary slightly to real life experiments but not in extremes. The author discusses how the several issues can be attributed to several reasons. They explained that precision errors in the pressure transducer, thermocouple, and calculation of atmospheric pressure could have affected the data. Along with those, bias errors in the calibration curve for the pressure transducer and thermocouple could have affected the results as well. It is important to note that this author decided to include the errors in their paper instead of excluding them. As stated in Technical Communication in the Ethics note, it is crucial to include all necessary information with one’s best explanation for the errors.

The latter sections of a lab report have the elements of the Conclusion, References, and sometimes Acknowledgements or Appendix. In their Conclusion they briefly and concisely sum up their study. This section could have been longer, as the author could have stated more thoroughly how their findings were similar or different to their hypothesis. They do explain how the study was successful in their findings though. They indicated that the results do follow the relation of the ideal gas equation. They also mentioned that statistical errors were present, but merely due to experimental error. Following the Conclusion is the section called Appendix: Experimental Data and Plots. As the name suggests, this section includes all of the information that the experiment had acquired. Instead of a section for References the author included an Appendix due to the amount of data that was found, and due to how practically all of this data was found by the author themselves. The table and graphs show the data that was found, and the positive correlation between temperature and pressure. All in all, Report A was able to adequately present all of the necessary data.

Moving on to Report B, the first difference that I was able to immediately find is the presence of an Abstract. Report B is longer than Report A, and objectively has more background information to talk about. Since the protozoan study contained more information as opposed to calculations, the Abstract helped prepare the audience for the upcoming information. In the introduction they continued to provide background information for the study, beginning with the etymology of the word ‘protozoan’. They explain that protozoans have both animal and plant-like qualities, and that they are composed of membrane bound organelles and a nucleus, indicating their complexity. The author provides more information as well. The information that is necessary for this study pertains to the structure and motion of the protists. The three classifications that the author talks about in Report B are sarcodines, those that move with false feet called pseudopodia, flagellates those that move with whip-like structures known as flagella, or ciliates, those that move with short hairs known as cilia. The author also briefly mentions the classification of protists with no movements, which are sporozoans. Towards the end of their introduction they indicate that their studies will be observing the patterns of locomotion in protists through their movement. The author has stated their goal, but similarly to Report A, a clear hypothesis was not included. However, they do pose questions that signal the reader of upcoming information that the experiment may find.

The Methods section on this Report shows a list of protists that can be chosen for this study. The author did so in order to allow future studies to be recreated via the same methods on this experiment. Using the protists Euglena, Paramecium, and Amoeba, the author was able to find similarities and differences between the three as well as the contrasting methods of motion. The methods and materials used were mentioned in this section, however Materials was omitted from the title. In the experiment they mentioned initially using a light microscope, which they later on switched out for a dissection scope, which helped them to better observe the movement of the protists. Feature wise, all of the protists were similar. As the author had expected and mentioned, all of them had a nucleus. The Paramecium however, had two. The Paramecium and Amoeba both had food and contractile vacuoles, but the Euglena did not. Along with this, only the Euglena had chloroplasts, which is an organelle commonly found in plants. In this section the author also included diagrams of each protist. The author provides images so that we can visually see the similarities and difference between each protist. 

Unlike in Report A, in Report B the Results and Discussion sections are two separated sections. In the Discussion section of Report B the author notes that despite their similarities, they are all classified into different groups. The protists’ motion was consistent with their locomotion organ: cilia, flagella, or pseudopod. All of the protists examined in this lab are examples of protists that use specialized structures for locomotion. Despite all of this, no matter what type of locomotion a protist uses, all protists must be able to carry out the metabolic functions of multicellular organisms. Based on the observations in this lab, protists are very small yet highly complex. The authors described protists as self-supporting “one cell factories” churning out all the processes that are usually carried out by a highly-organized network of cells. The author also stated this in the beginning of their paper. In their Conclusion they stated a summary of their findings, as well as the skills that they had developed through this experiment. As I have stated, a clear hypothesis was not present in this report, similar to Report A. However both reports do sum up their findings. 

To conclude, Report A and Report B were mostly different in structure. This is due to the difference in the type of information that was found per experiment. Report A had more statistical findings, thus a table and graph fitted their results. For Report B, a visual representation of the protists helped to show the similarities and contrasts for each one. Report A had an appendix to sum up all of the numerical data neatly, which Report B had an abstract that provided thorough background information for the readers. Neither of these reports were able to provide a strong hypothesis in their Introductions or Abstracts. However, the information they both provided was summed up clearly.