Lab Report (Paper) should include the following sections:

• Abstract: The abstract is not an introduction it is a one paragraph statement with a short description of what was done and what were the objectives of the experiment. It should also include how the experiment was conducted, very breifly, and a succint summary of the main results. If a set of numerical results were obtained then the value with all errors should be clearly quoted in the abstract. Finally, any important implication or conclusions should also be stated. Basically , the idea is to provide the reader with enough information for he or she to determine if it is a worthwhile read.
• Introduction: Here you will introduce the paper, described what is being measured in detail and why it is interesting. Background information should be included in this section and any theoretical motivation for the work. This section will likely be the most heavily referenced so make sure you keep track of what you read when you are learning about the experiment and then cite your sources careful in the reference section.
• Experimental Procedure: Describe the experimental setup in detail and the function of the equipment used. Here you will also describe the procedure used to take the measurements. Include figures, drawing or refer to manuals if available or used. Also summarize any difficulties experienced and important observation made while taking measurements. You should discuss in this section any possible sources of uncertainties and steps taken to minimize them should be detailed. Especially those that reduce your systematic or statistical errors.
• Results: Describe completely the result obtained from the measurements. Include a summary of important final calculations. Use tables, figures, plots and include any statistical analysis, parameter estimates that result, goodness of fits and any other relevant statistical information. A summary of the uncertainties described earlier and how they are included or affect your measurement should also be detailed in this section.
• Conclusion and Discussion: Here you state the meaning of your results and relate them to theoretical predictions or other existant measurements. You should also discuss possible improvements to the experimental procedure especially if your results are inconsistent with other results or have poor precision, ie., large uncertainties. If the latter go ahead and provide your thoughts on how one could improve the measrurement.
• References: See sample paper for format. You may use websites but please keep these to a minimum.
• Appendix: This is where you would include detailed calculations or programs.

Guidlines from the American Institute of Physics are available if you want the authoritative guidelines on how to write a physics paper. These are available here.

These will be graded as follows: