Biology Lab report
Writing a Scientific Report or Paper
Results of careful laboratory work are not useful unless they can be presented in a clear, concise manner to others for comment and evaluation. Such presentations are usually in the form of a scientific paper published in a reputable scientific journal. Scientific communications have many things in common, which leads to a rather standard style of writing that allow the results and meaning of experimentation to be quickly grasped by the reader. Scientists do not expect to read attractive, stimulating prose to obtain information from technical scientific papers. The experimental design, results and explanation of results are what are attractive and stimulating not the cleverness of the prose. The following discussion should be useful in helping you prepare your laboratory reports, which are scientific reports.
Read it carefully before beginning your reports. Your laboratory instructor may make additional comments. The specific format of a scientific paper varies among journals. However, the format presented below is the most commonly used. It is the format you must use in your scientific writing for this course. Part I: Format of a Scientific Report
The scientific report will be composed of seven sections. Each section will have a heading immediately followed by the text, figures or graphs. The order of the sections is: title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion and literature cited. A) Format regulations:
· typed
· double spaced
· 10-12 font, Times New Roman
· 1 inch margins
· pages numbered
· titled sections
· untitled hypothesis
· Quotes are NOT allowed. Everything must be properly paraphrased.
· No website references are permitted as sources. No exceptions.
· Everything must be properly cited. It is considered plagiarism if it is not.
· Write in third person, past tense
The overall presentation/grammar/spelling will be evaluated. Although this is not an English class, these elements are important to the proper communication of science. Before you turn in your final version, use the spell check function and reread your report. You should also take the time to visit the Center for Academic Success to participate in the Read, Write, and Cite Workshop series for additional help on writing your reports. Note: Never write statements like the following: “My lab report is about…”, “My hypothesis is…”,
or any version of this type of statement. (1) Title Section
Create a title that briefly conveys to the reader the purpose of the paper. The title of your report must be informative. Many readers scan journal article titles and the decision whether or not to pursue an article is based on the information in the title. Generally, this information includes: primary factor(s) manipulated or studied; outcome of manipulation (the response or effects); and organism studied, if relevant. An example of an informative title would be: “The Effect of Varying Serotonin Concentrations on Calcium Release at Synaptic Membrane in Motor Neurons ofAplysia.”
The title page must contain your name, Panther ID, lab partners’ names, title, and lab section. (2) Abstract Section
The Abstract should be an autonomous summary of the entire report. It serves to help readers determine how relevant the report is to their own interests. This section is brief, only one paragraph, in which the author indicates what was done, the reasoning behind it, the results and the conclusions. It must highlight only the most important elements of each major sections of the report (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion). The scientific report can be summarized into an abstract with four types of statements: purpose statements that are general in describing the importance and/or goals of the research; methods statements that explain what was done and how it was done; results statements that describe what information or data was acquired; and discussion/conclusion statements that explain what the information or data probably means and what conclusions are drawn. Only the most important aspects of the report should make it to the abstract.
This section should be at least 200 words in length. This section should contain a clear summary of what was demonstrated, how each part of the lab was carried out and how conclusions were reached. This section should contain one or two purpose statements (without saying “The purpose of this experiment is…”), a complete summary of each experiment (method statements) in a few sentences, and brief, accurate explanations of the results. The final sentences should be the concluding statements. (3) Introduction Section
This section should indicate why the study was done and give the reader sufficient background to understand the report. The “why” of the study will include historical information that leads to your study and the significance of the study to a specific discipline (such as developmental neurobiology) to which the study belongs. The reader, after perusing the introduction, should know precisely the importance of the problem being addressed. You should write about the questions you will be answering in this experiment. Although, the content of the introduction should start broad and narrow in scope as the introduction proceeds, be careful not to start too broad. This could lead to problems with the scope of the paper. Note: any historical background (that is, previous studies) must be properly cited. This section must include 4 peer reviewed outside sources (outside of lab book and text book), of which 2 should be primary literature.
This section contains the basic background information for the lab report. Be sure to comment on what is the significance of this study and its relation to the larger field. Give an example of why the study is significant. Your hypothesis is used to make the prediction(s). The predictions are based on the background information that was gathered. You should have a clear statement of the reason for performing the lab along with including the rationale for each technique used.
· What was the purpose of each experiment? For each experiment, include questions that will be answered and the expectedpredictions of the results for each question. Try to include a hypothesis. (without saying “My predictions are…” or “My hypothesis is…”)
· Note: Just because you are writing a report about a lab exercise does not mean you are basing the entire report on one hypothesis. You are more than likely going to need to discuss more than one set of variables, which would lead to more than one hypothesis or prediction.
· This section should be at least 400 words long and smoothly flow from one topic to the next. (4) Methods Section
A reader can evaluate the results of your study only if he or she understands the experimental design, the materials used and the reasoning behind them. Thus, it is important to carefully outline procedures and techniques used.
Complicated procedures might be graphically outlined. Besides procedures, this section should include models or equipment used (this should not be written like a laundry list of materials), source of chemicals (if relevant), numbers and types of organisms used, including sex and strain sample sizes, number of times experimental procedure was performed, and other pertinent factors. Please note: There should NEVER be a list of materials in this or any section.
· This section is at least 200 words and is a narrative. No credit will be given for a methods section written in a bulleted format.
· Include a brief description of how each experiment was performed. There should be enough detail so the reader (experienced researcher) could repeat the experiment. This does not mean having an extensive section on how you labeled a test tube. That is not important for the replication of the experiment. You need to include the aspects of the methods which are crucial for replication.
· You should explain the procedural steps taken (summarize) and not create a duplicate of the instructions from the lab manual. You must write the procedures in your own words, not the manual’s or anyone else’s.
· Again, NO list of materials is permitted. (5) Results Section
It is crucial that the outcomes of experiments are carefully organized and clearly presented. This is best accomplished by presenting data in clearly labeled graphs and tables. What the tables and/or graphs are meant to indicate should be clear without reference to text. However, references to each graph and table MUST be made in the text of the Results section. Graphs and tables should be numbered in the order in which they are mentioned in the text; that is, tables should be labeled as consecutive series (Table 1, Table 2, etc.). Each figure should have a figure title, number, and brief caption. The section text should elaborate on the information presented on the table as well as, summarize information presented in tables and/or graphs that will be pertinent to the discussion section.
You cannot turn in a lab report with a results section that does not have associated text explaining the incorporated figures. Analyses must be performed on class data. Thus, the data represented in your report should be representative of the class data, not just your group’s data. Included in this section should be sample data in the form of a picture. This can be a picture of your groups data as representative of the type of data collected.
· All graphs and tables should be your own work! Graphs and tables should not be identical to anyone else’s in the lab, including your lab partner’s.
· Also include a concise detailed description, which clearly summarizes the graph or table. Include comments about the results foreach experiment and control. This text is a verbal description of what the table/graph/picture is illustrating (enough detail to be on itsown).
· The text should be at least 200 words long
· Do not…
