This project helped us learn how to analyze two lab reports and compare them. it gave us a deeper understanding of each.
Abdul Arfeen
Writing for Engineers
Ms. Davidow
Rhetorical Analysis of Lab Reports
The two lab reports I will be analyzing are both related to Biomechanical engineering. The titles of them are “The Effects of Dynamic Loading on Bone Fracture Healing Under Ilizarov Circular Fixators” and “The Geometrical Arrangement of Knee Constraints That Makes Natural Motion Possible: Theoretical and Experimental Analysis”. Both lab reports have all eight basic elements that a lab report should have.
The title of both lab reports are clear and to the point. For example as we can see in “The Geometrical Arrangement of Knee Constraints That Makes Natural Motion Possible: Theoretical and Experimental Analysis”, in this title it is clear that the lab report will be discussing how the knee joint works and I can say this with certainty because of the word choice. The same cannot be said for “The Effects of Dynamic Loading on Bone Fracture Healing Under Ilizarov Circular Fixators”. In this title most people don’t know what ICFs (Ilizarov Circular Fixator) are, so we can conclude that this lab report is for people who already have background knowledge on the subject.
The next aspect of both lab reports is the Abstract, both of them include one and for good reason. The lab report about the knee joints natural motion states, “The knowledge of this property may thus allow the definition of better models, treatments, and devices”. This quote tells us the objective of the lab report, and it is the last sentence of the abstract. The reason the authors chose to do this is because they stated how they will be collecting their data and then gave a reason why at the end on why its important. For the lab report on the effects on the healing process of a fracture by an ICF the authors state what they discovered at the end of the abstract. Since this lab report is more targeted to individuals who have background knowledge on the topic the authors discuss the effects of the ICF and many factors on a fracture with complex words. In both lab reports the authors state the object and what they have discovered at the end of the abstract. Though something different about the two is that in the lab report about bone fracture healing the authors discuss the approach they took to test if there method is most ideal but in the other lab report they discussed more of how the knee works and how they recorded that information, so they could tell the audience why this need this information.
In both lab reports a heading “Introduction” is given to let the reader know that they will be going in to more detail rather than staying general like in the abstract. In both the lab reports the authors give background knowledge on the subject. The significance of this is that so the readers can know why this lab was done and how it will be helpful. Something else that is similar in both lab reports is that they refer to outside experiments like in the lab report the natural motion of the knee that state “Experimental evidence showed that some fibers in knee ligaments are almost isometric along the natural motion”, same goes for the other lab report. Then they both continue on by saying the reason for the experiment. Something that only the lab report about bone fracture healing did was state the questions they were going to answer within the lab report, “the research questions are…”. This is unique to this lab report because there is more complexity and giving the reader the questions will help organize the whole process and break it in the pieces so it’s easier to comprehend.
The next section in both lab reports is the Materials and Methods section. In the lab report about natural knee motion it has step by step explanations how to do the experiment and also the authors go into detail on what each variable in the equations given mean. This allows the reader to not only replicate whatever was done in the lab but also have an in depth understanding of what they are doing and why it happens. In the lab report about bone fracture healing a diagram is given in which the process is explained in detail, each part of the ICF is explained so that the reader follows along. The diagram was chosen for this lab report because an ICF is a physical object that will be experimented on and having a visual on it will be the best way to understand rather than trying to describe what is going on though words.
The next section is the results, and for both lab reports this section includes tables to display the information found. What both of the authors do in this section is discuss what they found out and compare it with what they predicted will happen. This is the best way to show the results because it can explain why their predictions were this right or this wrong and how they can improve on the results. Though next they both continued to the discussion section of the lab report. In this section the lab report about natural knee joint motion first off clearly states the goal of the experiment, then the authors continued on to explain the process of the whole experiment while including the results. This helped people understand why something were done, it helped show what worked and what didn’t and what still needs to be answered so that other people who might want to do an experiment like it can make changes into their experiment. What the authors of the other lab report did is first state what the results suggested and what that means. After that they compared the results with their predictions, also they stated the finding and showed it with a graphic. The graphics always make visualizing the process easier.
The last section of both lab reports is the references. In this section they will be acknowledging anyone or any source they discussed in their lab report, For both lab reports the authors had many references and they all seem to be up to date. The purpose of this section is so that the audience knows where they got their information from. Another use would be that if a someone wants to duplicate the experiment they know where to find the information necessary to conduct the experiment.
In conclusion both of the lab reports are very similar for the most part but have key differences that distinguish them from each other. The main purpose of both labs was accomplished and that shows in the lab reports because the audience is able to duplicate the experiment.
