When a scientist has completed a piece of research which is worthy of publishing, she will write a paper or article for a scientific journal. Scientific journals are peer-reviewed. This means that the scientist’s research is reviewed by another scientist to confirm that the findings are original, valid, and worthy of publishing. Only after the paper has been peer-reviewed is it published in a journal.
A paper which is published in a scientific journal is very different from a lab report. The purpose of a lab report is to demonstrate to the teacher the scientific competence of the student. It is required that the student explicitly define the variables and the controlled factors, even though they are implicitly defined in the Methods section. The student must show raw data and sample calculations for each step to show how the results and uncertainties were calculated, so that the teacher may check the validity of the data analysis.
In a journal paper the purpose is to provide the reader with the results of a scientific investigation. The scientific competence of the author is assumed, since the paper has been peer-reviewed. The role of the teacher in ensuring the scientific competence of a student lab report is filled by the peer-reviewer during the editing process. There is no need for the journal paper to include explicit definitions of variables in the introduction, nor is there a need for raw data tables or sample calculations. It is sufficient for the writer to describe the techniques used in analyzing the data and calculating the uncertainties.
To submit a paper for publishing in a journal, you will need to modify your lab report extensively. Your lab report will also have to be reorganized and reformatted to fit the requirements of the journal. Finally, you will have to submit the paper along with your original lab report and any data files you used.
Here are more details on how to modify your lab report to a scientific paper.Here are more details on how to format your paper.
Here are examples of papers and the lab reports they came from.
Here is the rubric which will be used to assess a class-assigned Journal Paper.