Introduction - Soil Properties: Testing, Measurement, and Evaluation - page 3

This format is intended to be all-inclusive; hence, some of the fore-
going headings will not apply in some cases and are therefore omitted
from such cases. In other instances, additional headings not included
here may be used.

Most, if not all, soil testing of any value culminates in a written report.
The reason for conducting tests is to evaluate certain soil properties quan-
titatively. To be useful, results must generally be made a matter of record
and also communicated to whoever is to use them. This invariably calls
for a written report. For college laboratory experiments, written reports
are required to communicate results to the laboratory instructor. With
commercial laboratory tests, written reports are needed to communicate
results to clients, project engineers within the company, and the like.
It should not be assumed that a single format exists for all written
laboratory reports. The purpose of a report, company policy, and indi-
vidual style, among other things, are factors that may affect report for-
mat. Reports from commercial laboratories to clients may consist simply
of a letter transmitting a single laboratory-determined parameter. More
often, however, reports constitute extensive documents that relate in
considerable detail all factors bearing on a test.
The authors suggest that the format presented in the preceding sec-
tion be adopted as a guide for students to follow in preparing laboratory
reports to be submitted to their instructors. Reports should be typed on
8 1 ⁄ 2 - by 11-inch plain white paper. They should be submitted in a folder,
with the following information appearing on the front of the folder:

LABORATORY
REPORTS

1. Title of report
2. Author of report
3. Course number and section
4. Names of laboratory partners
5. Date of test and date of report

Much has been written on how to write technical reports. In real-
ity, some individuals write very well, some write very poorly, and many
fall somewhere between these extremes. Readers who need assistance
in writing are referred to one of many topics available on technical writ-
ing. Suffice it to say here that reports should be written with correct
grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Use of personal pronouns should
be avoided. (Instead of “I tested the sample,” use “The sample was
tested.”) Finally, the report should be coherent. It should be readable,
easily and logically, from the first page to the last.

Often it is helpful to use graphical displays to present experimental
data. In some cases, it is necessary in soil testing to plot certain experi-
mentally determined data on graph paper in order to evaluate test re-
sults correctly. Good graphing techniques include the use of appropriate

LABORATORY
GRAPHS