Rhetorical Analysis of a Lab Report  

Eberge Dumay  

Writing for Engineering 

ENGL 21007 P 

Prof Davidow  

Lab reports are used to describe and educate an audience about a given topic. Usually, based on an experiment, lab reports are in-depth and teach the audience steps in the experiment and the results of each step. Lab reports follow certain guidelines in how they are structured. A lab report will follow this structure: Title, abstract, introduction, material and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgments, and references (Markel, 2017). In this piece, I’ll be examining one lab report and seeing how well it followed that guideline. The lab report I’ll be examining is titled “Assessing coupling interactions in a Safe and just operating space for regional sustainability” by Donghi Han, Deyong Yu, and Jiangxiou Qiu.

Title

To start our examination, we will look at the title. The title of a lab report should be specific. It should not be broad and give the reader an instant idea of what to expect when reading the report. As for the title of our report, I believe it is well-written and precise. It gives a good picture of what to expect in the report but is also specific. It is not just a generic title where you can infer many possible routes which the report could take. 

Abstract

The abstract is used to give a quick overview of what the report is about. The abstract should give the reader a good idea of whether they should continue looking at the report or search for another. Each section of the report is outlined with a sentence or two due to space limitations (Markel, Chapter-19). Our report follows this quite well. Reading the abstract I was not only able to decipher what I should expect from the reading, but it also allowed me to decide whether it was a report I’d be interested in. The abstract provided a lot of information in just a few sentences as an abstract should. 

Introduction

The introduction is one of the more important parts of a lab report as this is where you fully establish what your lab report is about. This is where you present the reader with the hypothesis and question at hand (Markel, Chapter-19). The introduction to this report is in my opinion very well written. It provides the reader with all the information the reader could before proceeding but also explains everything that is to be talked about and covered in the report. The report explains everything well even the average reader who may not have much experience in the field can comprehend what is being said. The introduction also provided many reasons as to why the topic is important and the importance of the experiment.

Results

The result section of a lab report is used to “present the evidence you will use to support the claims you will make in your discussion” (Markel, Chapter-19). This section should be very persuasive, and how you deliver your result will affect how persuaded your reader is on the topic at hand. For this piece (Han, Yu, Qiu) the results section is very good. A lot of information is provided in this part. The information is provided in the form of words but also graphs, diagrams, and tables. Grapsh is a great way of displaying information as it gives the reader a visual perspective of the results. The figures are well labeled and the authors the significance of them well. The authors provide the reader with as to what the figure is, and what they represent in the study.

Discussion

The discussion is the part where the author of the report analyzes the information and interprets the information. this section is where you’ll support or refute your argument, this is where you answer the question (Markel. Chapter-19). In this report  (Han, Yu, Qiu) the discussion is very good. It does what it is supposed to do. It provides evidence to support the author’s claims and ideas, it supports those claims and ideas with information from the results of the experiment. 

Methods

The methods section is used to provide the reader with methods that were used in the experiment. whether it was human subjects, chemicals, organisms, tools, or measuring devices (Markel, Chapter-19), this is where they would be listed. For this report, it wasn’t necessarily tools that were reported but the math and science in the experiment. it goes over how they got their results and what math was used and how they got their variables.

Acknowledgments

The acknowledgment section is where the author gives thanks to those who have helped you with the project, whether it was your colleagues or organizations that help fund your research, this is where you would acknowledge and thank them. In this report, the authors acknowledged the companies and organizations that made their research possible. 

References

Last but not least, the references. This is where the author provides all the references that they used in their report. Everyone and every article that you cited in your piece should be found in the reference section, but if you consulted someone and did not cite them, they should not be in your references (Markel, Chapter-19)

In conclusion, the report was well written and followed the guidelines well with a couple of mistakes here and there. For one they didn’t exactly follow the outline provided by Markel. Although I didn’t find this to be much of an issue as the whole report felt cohesive. As to why they skipped a few steps or put a couple of steps out of order, I’m not sure, but it didn’t stop the report from being informative and flowing well together.

Reference

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37073-z#Sec15 

Self Reflection

This assignment was not as easy as I expected it to be. This was my first time examining a lab report, and I wasn’t sure what to expect really. Although I came into this assignment blind in a way, I believe I had learned the right tools needed. My examination, research, and analyzing skills have come in handy for this assessment. The skills I had gained from the technical description assignment previous to this translated well. I was more aware of what to look for, and I found that research is easier now, but also examining what I’m reading is easier as well. I’m able to process information clearer and all that translates smoothly to this assignment. Without those skills learned previously, this assignment would’ve been significantly harder.