Writing up a prac.. (1 Viewer)

[GaDaMIt]

Well today in class we did a simple experiment similar to Faraday's electromagnetic rotator, and our teacher told us to write up a prac on it.

Now, he said we're being pushed an extra step in year 12 and told us to write it in past tense as that is how scientists do it when they publish their findings.

The question: how do you write it in past tense? I really don't see any other way other than using phrases like "I put .... ". Is this the correct way? To specify it to yourself?

 

[Boots Riley]

We have an exam tomorrow. Go away.

=)

I'm not sure, in fact - I don't know many of the first-hand investigation we're supposed to know. Can't really bother about that now.

 

[robmeister]

I agree boots, just think of it like this though to answer the question. Rather than saying I put my ugly face in the toilet and then i flushed it just say.
1. Put face in toilet.
2. Pushed button and flushed.

 

[Riviet]

Well in the exam, the question will ask you that "You performed a first/second hand investigation on..." so you will need to use past tense. It's not that hard to express in the past tense, e.g "A paddle wheel was used to show that cathode rays possessed momentum".

 

[jwong90]

umm this is a pretty late reply but yea thats wat my teacher said too.i handed in a normal prac and wen i got it back she just added the words -ed to practically all the words i strted with eg. pour-ed ,add-ed so basically just write a normal prac up and add -ed to the end i think.dunno if this helps =]

 

[alcalder]

Actually the tense used in prac write ups is impersonal, ie there is no we, I or such.

eg
The apparatus was set up as follows.

The ball was observed to fall to the ground with increasing acceleration. When measured it was found to equal 9.45 ms^-1.

And so on. Does that help?