Technical writing for lab reports

Raithed

China7078 Posts

September 26 2008 16:27 GMT

have you ever had a professor(engineering field) that is so anal about lab reports that you have to make everything perfect? ie. requires better diction, requires better syntax, grammar, and the whole nine yards. well my prof in circuits II is like that, man, its like he wants the wording to be simple yet have to have a shit-ton of details into it. im trying to get it perfect each time and he keeps finding flaws in my lab reports! im going to do amazing on the next one im aiming for a 90 since my first one was a 85.

graphs, etc, must be labeled. check!
conclusion must summarize the whole experiment(although he doesnt want it to be called experiment or lab, wtf does he want?!) check!
calculations done right and neatly, msword ftw. check!

hmph, what else?

oh yes. he wants all the stuff that we do signed by him. and has to be neat. bah! check.

anyone have better ideas to make it perfect, let me know, i really hate the way hes anal about lab reports.

Mastermind

Canada7096 Posts

September 26 2008 16:31 GMT

lab reports are always gay. They are the reason I swiched out of chemistry.They required 80% of my time but were worth 15-20% of the course marks. So gay. labs were fun, but the reports were hell.

Raithed

China7078 Posts

September 26 2008 16:42 GMT

yeah it requires a lot of time but i dont mind it i mean, the satisfaction of receiving a good grade is always fine. labs are fun but labs with this prof is like hell lol, he comes next to you and starts asking questions and stuff. thats fine but i hate having someone breathe on my neck every 30-some-odd minutes. and yeah, labs are 20% of the final grade.

tiffany

3664 Posts

September 26 2008 17:35 GMT

raithed why are you such a novice at school

paper

13196 Posts

September 26 2008 17:55 GMT

On September 27 2008 02:35 tiffany wrote:
raithed why are you such a novice at school

micronesia

United States24497 Posts

September 26 2008 18:13 GMT

It sounds like he hasn't expected anything unreasonable at all. He just wants to seem a decent job...

HIs grading doesn't seem that unreasonable either. But yeah, lab writeups are annoying.

potatoedoughnut

United States334 Posts

September 26 2008 18:29 GMT

What you did in the experiment is meaningless if you can't communicate what you did and why it's important. If you're just taking the class for a requirement or something I guess it doesn't matter, but if you're going into the field being able to write is extremely important.

Also, use LaTeX, word is crap for inserting any sort of equations, tables, or graphics.

Raithed

China7078 Posts

September 26 2008 18:37 GMT

On September 27 2008 02:35 tiffany wrote:
raithed why are you such a novice at school

why do you suck at bw. D:

Raithed

China7078 Posts

September 26 2008 18:41 GMT

On September 27 2008 03:29 potatoedoughnut wrote:
What you did in the experiment is meaningless if you can't communicate what you did and why it's important. If you're just taking the class for a requirement or something I guess it doesn't matter, but if you're going into the field being able to write is extremely important.

Also, use LaTeX, word is crap for inserting any sort of equations, tables, or graphics.

but none of my other profs are this anal. sure i get that in the lab reports youre suppose to write it as that the person dont know shit and youre basically explaining it and i did. for example i typed something like this

"this circuit deals with resistors and inductors in series" then he has to critique about that and made it "this circuit deals with RL in series" what i put is basically the same thing.

BottleAbuser

Korea (South)1888 Posts

September 26 2008 19:18 GMT

#10

I'm learning and using LaTeX for my homework. Very nice stuff. Won't help with your actual content, but it will make it look prettier, if that helps. Won't take more time to write in, once you get used to it. At least, didn't for me.