LAB REPORT MARKING SCHEME AND FORMAT

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Faculty, University of Malaya

PROGRAMME : Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering

COURSE : Mechanical Engineering Lab

Students are advised to follow the format below when preparing for your laboratory reports.

LAB-WRITING FORMAT:

Main text: For the main text, please use font size of 11-point, Times New Roman with single-line
spacing.

Headings: Headings should be aligned to the left. The font sizes are given in Table 1.

Table 1. Font sizes of headings.

Font size and
Heading level Example
style
1st-level heading 1 INTRODUCTION 12 point, bold
(UPPERCASE letter)
2nd-level heading 2.1 Printing Area 11 point, bold
(capitalize letter)

Tables: Tables are printed within the body of the text at the centre of the frame, using font size 10
point. The label should be placed above the table itself and has the following format:
Table 1 : Title 1
Table 2: Title 2

Figures: Figures, like tables are printed within the body of the text at the centre of the frame, using
font size 10 point and are numbered sequentially. The label should be placed below the figure itself
and has the following format:
Figure 1 : Title 1
Figure 2 : Title 2

Page Numbering
All page numbers should be printed 1.0 cm from the bottom margin and placed at the right hand side
without any punctuation. Font size 8 recommended for numbers.

Number of Pages
The report should be written concisely within the recommended 10 pages,
pages
excluding Front Cover and Initial Report.
Report
 LAB REPORT MARKING SCHEME:

Item Description
(a) Front Cover • Make sure you fill in your details such as name, matric number, title of
experiment, etc.
Note: Wrong title/ lecturer name of experiment leads to report missing.
Always refer to the lab briefing list for the correct title and lecturer.

(b) Abstract • This section should be included in the beginning of the report. It is the
summary of the experiment and should be written in one paragraph.
• Four essential aspect should be included: the purpose of the experiment;
key findings, significance and major conclusions.
• It describes “What was done?”, “How it was done?”, “Significant
results”

(c) Title • Correct title is provided in the lab briefing list. For example:
• Title: U2 Introduction to Arc & Gas Weldings

(d) Introduction • This section concisely describe the following aspect:

- State context/background of study
- Write the need for the study/ importance of the study
- Clearly define the problem (purpose of the investigation)
- Outline overall approach

• Do not include the formula in this section. The detail formulation should
be discussed in the theoretical background.

• You can search the information from the books, journals, conference
proceedings, as well as the Internet sources provided that you have to
rephrase each sentence from the original sources with the citation at the
end of the sentence. The most serious breach of ethical standards in
writing report/dissertation/thesis is the offence of plagiarism: the
expropriation of the intellectual property of another. Plagiarism is
defined as the use of original work, ideas or actual texts created by
others, without acknowledging the original source. For citations in the
text please use round brackets with author’s surname and year of
publication inside.

• An example of introduction with acknowledgement or citation should

be made as below: There are two ways of reducing or suppressing the
vibration; passive and active control. Passive vibration control consists
of mounting passive material on the vibrating structure in order to
change its dynamic characteristics such as stiffness and damping
coefficient (Jnifene, 2007), which is efficient at high frequencies but
expensive and bulky at low frequencies (Hossain and Tokhi, 1997).
Tzou (1988) mentioned that the device for passive control usually is an
energy absorption or dissipation device, for example viscoelastic
damper, dynamic absorber, shock absorber, to provide extra damping,
alleviate mechanical vibration, and improve overall system dynamic.
The function of these elements is simply to react passively in opposition
to the accelerations, deflection or velocities imposed upon them by
vibration. They require no external assistance to oppose the vibration
response except their immediate passive neighbours or structural
components which interact with them (Mead, 1998). The simplicity of
 the devices and that the system will always be stable are the advantages
of this approach. However, since it is a fixed design, there is no way that
the damping can be optimal under all operating conditions (Wang and
Kim, 1991).

• Note: The details of the reference should be provided in the reference

section. Do not provide it in the introduction section.
(e) Objectives • The main objectives that you want to achieve in this experiment. The
purpose of the experiment should be written in bullet form.
• Example: To make a joint by using arc welding.

(f) List of • Before you use the formula in the theoretical background section. You
Nomenclatures should define the symbol in this section.
(optional)
• This section is optional means you can define the symbol in the
theoretical background right after the first place the symbol is used,
instead of define it in the list of nomenclatures

(g) Theoretical • All the theory and the detail formulation used in this experiment should
Background be described here. This section includes the theoretical background
related to the experiment, how the equation involved in calculation is
derived and defined.

• Few criteria should be included depends the nature of your study:

i. Physical explanation of phenomena:

It is important to point out the pertinent physics governing the phenomena
that you are studying. It helps to orient the readers, and give context to your
theory and experiment.

ii. Develop governing equations

- Assumptions: support the them quantitatively, e.g., assume laminar flow
- Describe the model development; give the major equations, but leave
detailed algebra to the appendix. This part should be written as a mixture of
equations and sentences and not just a list of equations.

iii. Computer Simulation

- Connect your equations to the numerical scheme used; specify the initial
and boundary conditions
- Discuss numerical parameters (e.g., step size in integrating differential
equations);
- Do not put program listing in text; put it in an appendix
(h) • Complete lists of materials and equipment needed to perform the
Equipment/Apparatus experiment.
(i) Procedures • This is detailed description of how the experiment was actually
performed.
• Provide the equipment set-up figure (it can be a schematic diagram or real
picture with proper labelling)
(j) Result & • Calculations and experimental data are presented in this section. Results
Discussion can be presented in graphs, tables, etc. In the discussion, you can include
whether your results agree with the theory, possible reasons and errors for
the discrepancies and inconsistencies, and possible suggestions to improve
the results.
• Table and figure without caption and description are meaningless.
 Description of table and figure must be given first before providing them
in the report.
(k) Conclusion • The conclusions should correspond to the objectives of the experiment.
Write the significant result / statistic data to justify the achievement of
the objective.
• It should be written in one paragraph to conclude the findings for each
objective. If you have two objectives, give the conclusion in two
paragraphs.
(l) References References used such as books, articles (journals/proceedings), and Internet
sources should be written according to the given format. Number the
references alphabetically.

The details of the references cited throughout various sections of the reports
are summarized in the reference section.
1. Hossain, M. A. and Tokhi, M. O. (1997). Evolutionary adaptive active
vibration control, Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part I, 211, (3), 183-193.
2. Jnifene, A. (2007). Active vibration control of flexible structures using
delayed position feedback. Systems and Control Letters, 56, (3), 215-222.
3. Mead, D. J. (1998). Passive vibration control. John Wiley & Sons,
England.
4. Tzou, H. S. (1988). Dynamic analysis and passive control of
viscoelastically damped nonlinear dynamic contacts. Finite Elements in
Analysis and Design, 4, (3), 209-224.
5. Wang, K. W. and Kim, Y. S. (1991). Semi-active vibration control of
structures via variable damping elements. Mechanical Systems and Signal
Processing, 5, (5), 421-430.

Journals:
Author(s) (Year of publication). Title of the article. Name of the journal,
volume number, (issue number – if available), page number.
Example:
Hossain, M. A. and Tokhi, M. O. (1997). Evolutionary adaptive active
vibration control, Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part I, 211, (3), 183-193.

Conference proceedings:
Author(s) (Year of publication). Title of the article. Name of the conference,
conference venue, conference date, page number.
Example:
Abd Latif, I. and Tokhi, M. O. (2009). Fast convergence strategy for particle
swarm optimization using spreading factor, Proceedings of the IEEE
Congress on Evolutionary Computation, Trondheim, Norway, 18-21 May
2009, 2693-2700.

Books:
Author(s) (Year of publication). Title of the book. Location: Publisher.
Example:
Dorigo, M. and Stützle, T. (2004). Ant colony optimization, USA,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Internet sources:
Author(s) (Date of publication). Title of document. Retrieved day, month,
year, from http://Web address.
Example:
Bernstein, M. (2002). A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites.
 Retrieved 2 May 2006, from http://www.alistapart.com/articles/cite living
(m) Appendix • Include any extra information relevant to the study such as picture,
detail derivation of equation, detail programming, exemption letter,
initial report, etc. This is the section for you to justify some
occurrence.
• Attachment of initial report is compulsory in this section. This is
basically the sheet of paper in which you write your name, matric
number, group number, date of experiment, title of experiment and raw
data obtained during lab session. All initial report should be verified
(signature & stamp) by the lab demonstrator or lab technician. No initial
report will be signed if student fail to provide the personal information as
well as the experiment data in the initial report.
• Attachment of exemption letter/ justification letter is compulsory
for those who do not attend to the lab session as per assigned.
• Other information is optional.

DISTRIBUTION OF MARKS:

Lab reports : (Refer the rubric from the Lab Report Evaluation Form (LRE))

Softskill : (Refer the rubric from the Student Performance Evaluation Form (SPE))

GENERAL INFORMATION:

1. Please be punctual during your lab sessions. Lab can only start when each and every member of
your group are there except unforeseen circumstances.

2. Please submit your lab report before the due date, which is within two weeks after each experiment
(Semester break is excluded). 3 marks will be deducted for the late submissions, even for one day late.

3. If you are not able to attend your lab session, please inform the lab demonstrator to reschedule for a
replacement time. If you are absent, you must provide exemption letter/ MC/ justification letter to the
demonstrator, else replacement will not be allowed.

4. Please wear lab coat and shoes during your lab sessions. You are not allowed to conduct
experiment without lab coat and shoes.

Please do not hesitate to contact your lab coordinator/ demonstrator if there are any questions.