4 Easy Steps to Success in a Lab Course at Michigan Tech

Disclaimer: This may seem like a very presumptuous paper, and I'll assure you it is. All claims made here are not necessarily true. This data was collected from a mere 99.95% of the lab TAs here at Michigan Tech, and by no means applies to the other 0.05%. 1. Key words. This is the biggest and most important part of lab courses. You have to realize that most of the people teaching our lab courses cannot speak our language (this comment isn't directed at the Indian, Malaysian, or Russian, etc. nationalities--even my American born TAs usually don't talk, it's just forbidden in the scholarly circles of graduate school). Thus, make sure you do your research and figure out the list of words each TA refers to when grading papers. For example, and electrical engineering student might use the following as his intro sentence.
	Electrical inductance is a magnetic loop area field of the current voltage electromagnetic force when the conductance is less than capacitor impedance for the potentiometer on the prototype board.
This will automatically give you a base score of 75% to work off of for the rest of your post lab, especially if you use the words "electromagnetic force" two or three times. *Extra Tip: If you seem to be doing poorly despite strong efforts to include these words, try bold, italics, and different font types to accentuate your prolific use of the key words.
2. Key Phrases. As shown above, the phrases "thus", "due to the fact", "therefore", and "as shown above/below/previously/in the next paragraph" are critical to the development of the paper. Since engineering majors are not required to take any real English classes, the use of these 4 phrases are a sure shoo-in for a splendidly tied together paper. If used adeptly, these phrases can completely fill up the entire body of your post lab without the need for any real substance besides a few graphs, figures, and pictures. Here is an example sentence.
	Thus, we therefore can show below in the following paragraph that due to the fact we have shown above in the previous paragraph that it is therefore thus.
So on and so forth for the next 2 pages will give you a well rounded report.
3. Specifications. Whatever you do, make sure that your post lab fits the specs of the TA. There is nothing an overworked, underpaid graduate student hates more than to see his or her rules broken. There is a reason why graduate students are in charge of labs--professors would never want to grade 60 post labs every week. Because of this, TAs usually set stringent limits on the margins, line spacing, font size, font face, and number of pages. These categories make up 40% of the rest of your grade, and if you fail in the slightest on any one of these, your score could and will be lowered letter by letter until there is nothing left. *Extra Tip: Figures can be appended, but if they are in the text and your lab is longer than it should be, your post lab will automatically be dubbed wrong and returned to you without the slightest glance at the true content of your report.
4. Data Collection. At Michigan Technological University, we pride ourselves on our ability to take extremely accurate data. One way we consistently return such true measurements is because of our strict graphing policy. To attach, insert, or append a graph is easy, but the documentation that goes along with it is what makes us so special. Each graph must have the data collector's name, TA's name, room number, machine number, repair schedule for the machine, the date of manufacturing for the machine, the date of birth of the data collector, the date of birth of the TA, the maiden name of the collector's mother, and the last time the collector cut his/her toenails. At Michigan Tech, we do data collection right.
My sincere hope is that you can find this lighthearted diatribe (is that possible?) to be somewhat helpful in the years to come, and that you won't be suckered into "labthink", a monotonous regurgitation of data, when you finally establish a career where the gift of innovation is critical.

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This page was last updated June 5, 2000.