What is the difference between the abstract and the introduction when writing a lab report?

Answer 1

An Abstract is a short paragraph or two in the beginning of the report, that is a brief overview of the experiment ( or whatever), including results.

The purpose of this section is for the reader to decide after reading this, should they read further.
After you have to read many reports, you want a quick overview of the report at the beginning, so you can decide if the content of the report is what you are looking for. You have to put yourself in the perspective of researcher looking through piles of reports, but only have time to read a few. Hmmm which ones...
The abstract should be as complete, yet brief as possible.
Two or three paragraphs tops.


The introduction outlines the experiment, the concents required, but is not a step by step description, that is described in the procedure.

The procedure is a step by step approach, so that anyone can reproduce the experiment and hopefully the result.

See the link

Answer 2

introduction is the a vivid explanation of what one is to embark on including what people need to know concerning the topic with some relevant authors while abstract is similar to summary but with result of the search