Change over time essays vs Lab Reports

As a student, I have the opportunity to take many classes from a diverse array of departments. My high school strongly emphasized history and social studies; and therefore, as a high school student, I followed my peers and took World History and US history. In two classes, I was trained to eradicate everything I know about writing essay and start from scratch. I fact, I remember my teacher giving a distinct, strict, structure to write my change-over-time essay, an essay that focuses how a specific region or country changes over a span of time. In this structure, the first sentence always contains the time period and location of my essay topic. The body paragraph focuses on one of the following seven topics: Social, Political, Religious, Intellectual, Technological, Economical, and Environmental (SPRITEE, as she called it). Lastly, the concluding paragraph is a summary of the paper and contains a repetition of the thesis.

As I moved onto college, I decided to focus on Chemistry rather than History. Therefore, I took General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physical Chemistry. In these courses, rather than writing change-over-time essays, I had to write lab reports. I had to once again learn rewire my brain to write my lab reports. The lab reports are divided into various sections: Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Abstract and the Introduction sections contain the background information. The Results section contains all of the concrete, qualitative and quantitative data. Finally, the Discussion section is dominant and most important part of the lab report. The Discussion contains all of the interpretation of the data and the reason why the data came out as it did.

Therefore, in writing lab reports I have to use a wholly new method of thinking and writing. Lab reports are rather stratified in comparison with change-over-time essays. In the lab reports all of the analysis is located in the Discussion section, and in the change-over-time, the analysis is located in the body paragraph, which makes up nearly 70% of the essay. Additionally, in lab reports, I focus on a hypothesis or theory and in the change-over-time essays, I focus on a thesis. A distinct difference between the two is that in writing the lab report, I set out to see if the hypothesis holds true and is not incorrect and in writing the change-over-time I have to set out to convince the reader that my thesis is correct. The lab reports hold an apologetic tone of voice. I can only prove that my hypothesis is not incorrect. Conversely, change-over-time essays hold a strong, affirmative, “my view is correct” tone of voice. I have to convince the reader that my thesis is true and correct. There exists a difference in the tone of voice because the mindset that is needed to write a lab report is different from that needed to write a change-over-time essay.

In science, everything is uncertain. Scientists set out to observe the world and create hypotheses. Once the hypotheses have been tested numerous times over and still hold up, the hypotheses then become theories. Theories are therefore not proven facts; they are just firm hypotheses. It takes hundreds of experiments to create a theory out of a hypothesis; however, it only takes one experiment that disproves the theory in order to thrash that particular theory. Science is a field built upon uncertainties and questions. Science can never make a theory into a fact. Therefore, when writing the lab report, I cannot prove that my hypothesis is correct. I can only prove that it is not incorrect. Therefore, I cannot take a “my view in correct” tone of voice. Analogously, historians set out to observe the world and create theories. However, in history, everything is based on perspective. The history recounted by the conqueror is different from that recounted by the conquered, but both histories are correct. Because history is based on perspective, historians take an affirmative, authoritative tone in presenting their theories. Historians want to convince the reader that his take on history is correct one, that his take on history is better than other historians. Therefore, because of the different purpose and mindset of Chemists and Historians, they use different methods and languages when writing.


Looking at the striking differences between change-over-time essays and lab reports, I realize that Mikhail Bhaktin’s essay “Discourses in the Novel,” is absolutely applicable to my life. The language of History and the Language of Chemistry are vastly different. The differences arise from the differences in the mindsets of Chemists and Historians. They both set out to explore the world and tests theories. However, scientific theories are based on experiments and can be easily shot down. Therefore, scientists cannot prove their theories; they can only not-disprove their theories. Thus, lab reports do not contain the authoritative tone of voice. Historians, however, do hold an authoritative tone of voice. A large portion of historical theories is based on perspective rather than experimental evidence. Therefore, historians use the authoritative tone of voice to convince the reader their perspective is the correct one. Bhaktin states that language serve its own social-political purpose. I can see that the language of chemistry is different from the language of history because each has its own purpose and mindset.