Lab Report Analysis
Anthony Del Rosario
City College of New York
ENGL 21007–B2
Professor Sara Jacobson
March 21st, 2021
Lab Report Analysis
In this analysis, I will take a close look at two lab reports. The First Lab Report that I found is titled “Using locally produced photovoltaic energy to charge electric vehicles.” by René Buffat, Dominik Bucher, and Martin Raubal. The second Lab Report is “Privacy-preserving blockchain-based electric vehicle charging with dynamic tariff decisions.” by Fabian Knirsch, Andreas Unterweger, and Dominik Engel. I will be reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of each report. All Lab reports require the main eight elements to be able to be an effective Lab report, and each of these reports satisfy the eight elements in their own way.
At the beginning of both lab reports, half of the page is used as the cover page and provides the title, authors, and information about the publication. Both lab reports provide an effective title. I found “Using locally produced photovoltaic energy to charge electric vehicles.” to be a very good title as it is informative, sends a clear message about what the lab report will be about, and grabs the reader’s attention. I did find the title of the second lab report slightly confusing. “Privacy-preserving blockchain-based electric vehicle charging with dynamic tariff decisions.” is informative, but it is slightly too complex and may end up confusing a reader rather than grabbing their attention. The authors’ names are also included, along with details of the publication, such as the date and where it was published.
The next element is the Abstract, which is directly under the title. Report #1 does a good job summarizing the important content in lab report and dives deeper into what the title was hinting about, but still, it does not give everything away and the reader still has to continue reading the lab report to find the more specific data and explanations. The first sentence states “Mobility in Switzerland currently consumes about 35% of the total energy demand.” (Buffat, Bucher, Raubal, et al., 2017). It gets straight into explaining what the lab report is about, which is the energy production and consumption of Switzerland. Then it goes on to introduce the renewable resource the whole lab is about, PV, or Photovoltaic energy. The abstract states “It is expected that PV has the highest growth potential of all renewable energy sources.” (Buffat, Bucher, Raubal, et al., 2017). Report #2 also provides an effective abstract below the title. It presents the problem that will be addressed throughout the paper and introduces the proposed solution. The abstract states “Beside the increasing number of electric vehicles, a dense and widespread charging infrastructure will be required. This offers the opportunity for a broad range of different energy providers and charging station operators, both of which can offer energy at different prices depending on demand and supply.” (Knirsch, Unterweger, Engel, et al., 2017) This is the problem that the lab report is going to address. Report #2’s Abstract introduces a possible solution when it states, “In this paper we present a reliable, automated and privacy-preserving selection of charging stations based on pricing and the distance to the electric vehicle.” (Knirsch, Unterweger, Engel, et al., 2017).
After the abstract comes the Introduction. The Introduction somewhat includes the same content that the abstract has but the introduction dives even deeper into the purpose of the experiment and exactly what is trying to be achieved. This introduction in Report #1 specifically states, “In order to decarbonize the transport sector, electrification of both the private car fleet as well as commercial truck fleets is necessary.” (Buffat, Bucher, Raubal, et al., 2017). This is explaining that the best way to eliminate carbon emissions from transportation is to move to electric vehicles across the board. It is further emphasizing and elaborating on some of the information that was stated in the abstract. We also start to see actual data in the introduction while the abstract was only a brief summary of the report. The report states “Fossil fuels are the primary energy carrier by a large margin, generating 95.2% of all the energy consumed by transport and mobility” (Buffat, Bucher, Raubal, et al., 2017). The introduction of Report #2 does not use any data like the introduction from report #1, but rather continues to explain the idea that the paper is proposing. An example of this is shown when the report states “Each provider may also offer dynamic pricing depending on the energy needed and the time available for charging. Customers may, for instance, get cheaper tariffs if they are willing to charge over longer periods of time which allows the energy providers to better curtail load.” (Knirsch, Unterweger, Engel, et al., 2017). In this quote, the authors are presenting real life examples of how their proposed idea would work and demonstrates why it is beneficial.
Materials and Methods follows the Introduction, however on both lab reports, it is in the sections Related Work and Data. Both lab reports didn’t really list any materials as they were mostly research into electric vehicles, and they theorized different idea to make electric vehicles more mainstream. The main method used is report #1 and report #2 is placing data and statistics throughout the paper and making predictions and conclusions based on the data that was collected and presented in the report. The text states “32 looks at a combination of geographic information systems and image recognition to compute the rooftop area available for PV deployment in Ontario, Canada.” (Buffat, Bucher, Raubal, et al., 2017) This is an example of how the data is used in both lab reports. Charts and tables that contain the data are placed where said data is relevant in the report, and the text refers back to the data to help explain and/or draw conclusions. Having the data visible to the reader also improves the readability of both reports, .
After materials and methods comes the Results. Usually this is where all of the data that is presented throughout the paper comes together to arrive to one solid conclusion. However, both reports #1 and #2, this section is called Evaluation. Visuals are also utilized here. For example, on report #1, the Evaluation section includes huge images that show the entire country of Switzerland divided into its municipalities and highlights the ones that require more electricity. The text states “It is clearly visible that big cities (such as Zurich, Bern, Basel or Geneva) and larger villages have a high potential, due to the large density, of buildings, yet small municipality area.” (Buffat, Bucher, Raubal, et al., 2017). This section also shows images of the most common daily commute routes and data that shows which region use car’s the most. All of this is added to the lab report so the reader can see for themselves where most of the electricity demand is and even make their own calculations.
Two of the last elements of a lab report are Discussion and Conclusion, however lab report #1 combine these into one section. Here the authors’ sum up their points. Report #1 states “The total energy demand of the transport sector, including freight transport, air travel, as well as public transport, consumed 85TWh in Switzerland in 2015. However, it needs to be considered, that electric vehicles are more efficient than their fossil fueled counterparts.” (Buffat, Bucher, Raubal, et al., 2017). This statement is important because you can see they are restating points they made before as they are starting to close up their thoughts. They restate important points such as electric cars are more efficient than gas cars, and also restate the scenarios they discussed before when they state, “We looked at three charging scenarios: charging at the workplace, charging at home and charging at both places.” (Buffat, Bucher, Raubal, et al., 2017). Lab report #2 does not have a Discussion section. Instead, they have it spread out throughout the last few pages of the report in multiple mini sections. The formatting used in lab report #1 is much better than the one used in lab report #2 because lab report #2 format reduces the readability of the lab report since there is no defined area where the reader can look to view the discussion of the experiment. Report #2 does however have a conclusion section. The authors were very brief in their conclusion and just recalled why the experiment was carried out. The conclusion for report #2 states “The protocol allows customers to find the cheapest charging station within a pre- vious defined region and preserves the privacy of the electric vehicle.” (Knirsch, Unterweger, Engel, et al., 2017). Here they are simply reiterating what their idea can be used for if implemented in the future and how it could possibly work. Lab report #1 had a much longer conclusion and went more in depth into revisiting everything that was addressed in the paper. Usually, new information is not introduced in the conclusion, but since it was paired with the discussions, some new things were said in this section. Regardless, both lab reports had excellent conclusions to close off the papers.
The last element of lab reports is the references. After the conclusion, both report #1 and report #2 correctly and appropriately cited all of their work in APA format. They also organized their references, so it is easy for a reader to navigate them.
So, in conclusion, the lab reports “Using locally produced photovoltaic energy to charge electric vehicles.” and “Privacy-preserving blockchain-based electric vehicle charging with dynamic tariff decisions.” both did very well in presenting their ideas effectively to the audience. Many of the methods used by the lab reports were similar, such as the use of images, charts, and data tables. Some, differences and weaknesses were clear in lab report #2 such as the complicated title and the complicated organization of the elements. Lab Report #2 is slightly at a disadvantage for the organization of the sections which harmed the readability, but ultimately, both got their points across to the audience.
Bibliography:
Buffat, R., Bucher, D., & Raubal, M. (2017). Using locally produced photovoltaic energy to charge electric vehicles. Computer Science – Research and Development, 33(1-2).
Knirsch, F., Unterweger, A., & Engel, D. (2017). Privacy-preserving blockchain-based electric vehicle charging with dynamic tariff decisions. Computer Science – Research and Development, 33(1-2).
Self-Reflection
This assignment was very difficult for me at first. The struggle began right at the beginning when I had a hard time trying to find two lab reports to write about. I found it very hard to find any lab reports at first. Eventually I did figure out how to find lab reports that I could use, but then I couldn’t find any lab reports that were related to my major or my interests. After a few days of playing with the CCNY Database, I was finally able to find a few lab reports that I could use. My first draft was a real mess, and I completely did it wrong. I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do so I ended up writing more about the content of the labs than the elements of the lab reports. I was also very unfamiliar with APA format and I ended up mixing APA and MLA format in my first draft. My organization and formatting were also extremely poor in my first draft. Usually, organizing my thoughts are one of my strengths, but I was completely clueless for this assignment that it ended up being one huge paragraph that was five pages long. I had re-read it multiple times to see if I could make it better, but it still felt like a weak essay. The real game changer for me was the peer review. Having another set of eyes really helped me clean up my essay and find mistakes I didn’t even notice. An example of this is that a cover page is required for this assignment, but I had not realized that I had also put an MLA hearing after the cover page. I also picked up some ideas while reviewing my peers papers. On my first draft I had written about one lab report in the beginning and the other lab report after. Essentially I had done each lab report individually. This was a very time consuming method, and I would’ve done it again if I had not seen what my peers did. They organized it by talking about each element in one paragraph and explaining how both lab reports used the element within the paragraph. This was was a huge improvement over my method as now I’d write about both lab reports at the same time, and talk about each element individually. Using the feedback I received, I began typing up my final draft. My final draft looked way more organized since thanks to my peers and their help. I also fixed my format so that it is now APA instead of a mix of APA and MLA format. My peer review also told me to focus less on the content of the lab reports. It was one of my weaknesses in my first draft, but I think it is one of my strengths now that I put way more emphasis on the eight elements. I had also forgotten to put page numbers in my first draft, something my peer realized and advised me to do. Although the assignment wasn’t to focus much on the actual content of the lab reports, I was genuinely intrigued by the topic I was reading about. I had never really thought about how the power grid would be stretched to its limit as more people buy electric vehicles. Reading about the possible solutions that could solve these problems were very interesting as we might actually see one of these ideas in the real world soon. If I was to do something different for this assignment, I’d probably start out sooner as I underestimated it and thought I could get it done quickly. Overall I think I did pretty good on this assignment, considering the fact that I started off on a bad foot on the first draft, but I did have weaknesses in my paper and it could’ve been improved further.
