The process of writing a formal publication-style lab report is a crucial aspect of first-year undergraduate chemistry and biochemistry curricula. The technical writing skills that are gained during this process allow students to decipher and understand journal articles. However, students often struggle during this initial learning process, sometimes omitting necessary details in their lab reports or misunderstanding the formatting requirements. To improve the process of learning how to write a formal lab report, we have developed and deployed an annotated lab report guide based upon portions of similar reports from prior years’ students. The unique format of such an annotated lab report writing guide will be presented and its impact on students’ performance will be discussed. Our findings suggest that the incorporation of an annotated lab report writing guide into the first-year undergraduate chemistry curriculum was helpful and improved students' performance overall.

Introducing an annotated lab report writing guide and examining its impact on students’ performance

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.