Conference Proceedings Detail Page
Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports
written by
Kelley Sullivan
Written communication of scientific ideas is an important skill often honed through report-writing in physics laboratory courses. I present a series of tutorials that I developed to support students in learning to produce well-written and professionally-formatted laboratory reports. The tutorials include typesetting in LATEX (with BibTeX), graphing in MATLAB, preparing diagrams using Inkscape, and writing abstracts, introductions, and conclusions. I evaluated student reports and found no statistical difference in the quality of reports written before or after the tutorials were introduced. Responses on end-of-course questionnaires, however, show that students overwhelmingly favor the tutorials and find them helpful in supporting their learning.
Physics Education Research Conference 2018
Part of the PER Conference series Washington, DC: August 1-2, 2018
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![]() <a href="https://www.per-central.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=14858">Sullivan, Kelley D.. "Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports." Paper presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018.</a>
![]() K. Sullivan, , presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC, 2018, WWW Document, (https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14858&DocID=5005).
![]() K. Sullivan, Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC, 2018, <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14858&DocID=5005>.
![]() Sullivan, K. (2018, August 1-2). Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports. Paper presented at Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC. Retrieved February 10, 2025, from https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14858&DocID=5005
![]() Sullivan, Kelley D.. "Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports." Paper presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2018, Washington, DC, August 1-2, 2018. https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14858&DocID=5005 (accessed 10 February 2025).
![]() Sullivan, Kelley D.. "Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports." Physics Education Research Conference 2018. Washington, DC: 2018. of PER Conference. 10 Feb. 2025 <https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14858&DocID=5005>.
![]() @inproceedings{
Author = "Kelley D. Sullivan",
Title = {Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports},
BookTitle = {Physics Education Research Conference 2018},
Address = {Washington, DC},
Series = {PER Conference},
Month = {August 1-2},
Year = {2018}
}
![]() %A Kelley D. Sullivan %T Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports %S PER Conference %D August 1-2 2018 %C Washington, DC %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14858&DocID=5005 %O Physics Education Research Conference 2018 %O August 1-2 %O application/pdf ![]() %0 Conference Proceedings %A Sullivan, Kelley D. %D August 1-2 2018 %T Communicating scientific ideas: tutorials for professionally-styled laboratory reports %B Physics Education Research Conference 2018 %C Washington, DC %S PER Conference %8 August 1-2 %U https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=14858&DocID=5005 Disclaimer: ComPADRE offers citation styles as a guide only. We cannot offer interpretations about citations as this is an automated procedure. Please refer to the style manuals in the Citation Source Information area for clarifications.
Citation Source Information
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