Your laboratory research paper needs to include a results section at the end, and it is as important to your study as your introduction. Your abstract should be a single-page story of your study. It starts with an introduction, then describes your field of study, and finally concludes with your conclusions. The length of your abstract can vary, but the important thing is that it ends in a positive note. Use double-space of font size 12 for the title of your results section, and include numbered page numbers for easier identification.
Your results section will also include a brief description of your main thesis or topic. Use a consistent, readable style. If your research uses different methods or concepts to describe the same phenomena, use one of the following to distinguish between your two main areas of study: general or model principles. General principles are generally presented in the form of an abstract, and model principles appear as a descriptive illustration or theory.
The two types of results sections should be designed to be self-explanatory. Your hypothesis and study method should clearly indicate what you are testing and how your experiment is related to your hypothesis. A clear statement of your hypothesis and the associated data collection methods should precede any results section.
Your results section should include at least three tables and or charts, and they should show at least six of ten different types of experimental procedure or outcome. You can include a table displaying group comparison (i.e., two groups of children treated identically). Another option is to present summary statistics, which summarize the data in the tables and/or charts. Data presentation can be done with normal or chi square or trichotomy charts, and more advanced statistics such as binomial probability models. It is not recommended that you use more than ten different charts in your laboratory reports; a smaller number will be easier to read and interpret.
The most common formats for a lab report are fully descriptive (i.e., descriptive sentence types), descriptive(phrase-based) tables and/or charts, and limited or mixed-effects models. Fully descriptive figures are descriptive of each experiment and effect, and therefore are an excellent choice for a research study. However, you should consider including a literature review as part of your descriptive tables and/or charts, if you are providing information to the FDA. For example, if you are comparing two acne products, you would want to include a brief discussion of why one product is more effective than the other. If you are analyzing the relationship between diet and cancer, you would need to provide some supporting data (e.g., a study showing that vegetarians have a lower cancer rate) before drawing any conclusions about diet and cancer.
In a descriptive results section, you will often present data in a table format. You should avoid using graphs or other visual devices unless absolutely necessary, in order to focus your attention on the descriptive characteristics of the experiment. You should also avoid using multiple statements in your descriptive tables and/or charts. Multiple statements can draw the eye away from the main message (i.e., the result of the research study).
A mixed-effects model is a more complicated version of a descriptive results section. In this case, you should draw a title and then discuss the methods used to analyze the results. You should also briefly discuss the significance of the results for the specific study. The final paragraphs of the mixed effects lab report format should include a conclusion regarding the specific implications of the studies discussed in the tables and/or charts. For example, if you are discussing a study that found that a patient who drank green tea before bedtime had a better sleep than a control group that drank a non-green tea beverage, you would conclude by discussing the implications of that finding for treating insomnia.
The format of your results section should be clearly outlined in the instructions accompanying the specific type of experiment you used to conduct the research. In addition to a detailed description of the procedure and/or methods used, your results section should also clearly define the data collection methods that were used. The use of an official template helps you put together a more concise statement of the type of information you want to present in your reports. You can find many types of templates online as well as more specific instructions for writing your own Lab Report.
