Photosynthesis Lab Report
Objective: The purpose of this exercise is to teach you how to prepare a lab report in the style of a scientific paper. The report will be a description of the experiment your group performed during the photosynthesis lab.
Requirements:
1. Due Date: The report is due at the beginning your laboratory on Feb. 28 or March 1. You will need to also turn in your graded Materials and Methods.
2. Late Reports: Three points will be deducted per day late.
3. Format: Your report must be typed and between four and six double-spaced typed pages excluding figures. Please read carefully the material on plagiarism at the website listed below if you need to be informed about what is acceptable and what is not in how you cite the work of others. http://www.cst.cmich.edu/users/alm1ew/Plagiarism.html Do not copy directly from your book or the lab handout.
4. Style: The report should be written in accordance with the writing manual, Writing papers in the Biological Sciences (2001). It is usually best to write the Materials and Methods portion first, then the Results portion including preparation of your figures.
A. Title- This should be a positive and concise description of your experiment.
B. Introduction - In simple terms the introduction serves as background information to prepare the reader to understand the rest of the lab report. This should be a section that contains a description of the research problem and the underlying principles of biology related to your experiment. (For example, this report should include information about the light reactions of photosynthesis.) This section should be written in the present tense. This section should include cited literature and it should be cited in a standard format. One of your literature sources may be your textbook. The introductory section typically concludes with a statement of the hypothesis of your experiment.
C. Material and methods- This section should include the materials, major equipment, and methods of data analysis. This section should be written in the past tense. The goal is to write in sufficient detail so the reader could repeat your experiment but not to report excessive details. For example, if you are during an experiment with 10 test tubes, you do not need to report that you labeled the tubes 1-10. The reader assumes you did something to keep the tubes straight, it doesn't matter what. To do this portion of the lab report, make sure to use paragraph form. Use your lab protocol as a guide, but summarize the experiments and materials and report all changes you made. For example, if the protocol says incubate for one hour, but it turns out you incubated for one hour and ten minutes just record you incubated for one hour and ten minutes.
D. Results- This section should consist of an objective description of all observations and the experimental data obtained. This section should be written in the past tense. You should include figures and/or tables. This portion of your report should not include cited literature. The text portion of the results should be directed to explaining and describing what the reader should/can see in the figures. All figures should be cited within the text where discussed as (Figure 1).
D.1 Figures. Below each figure you should include a caption containing enough information to understand the figure just from the caption. All graph axes should have labels including the unit of measurement.
D.2. Tables. Above each table you should include a caption containing enough information to understand the table just from the caption.
E. Discussion- This section should discuss the main findings and evidence you used to form your conclusions. It should be a discussion of what your results mean and you should try to account for unexpected results, variations, and exceptions. You should include comparison of your results with published reports or what you think you should have gotten as results. It is not necessary to suggest every source of error that may have affected your results. This section should be written in the present tense and include literature cited.
F. Literature cited - This is a list of all references you have cited. You will need at least three cited works excluding web sites.
Sample grading sheet for laboratory report
Appropriate placement of material within sections (3 pts.)
Figure and table legends (2 pts.)
Spelling and grammar (3 pts.)
Literature Cited (3 pts.)
Introduction (5 pts.)
Material and methods (5 pts.)
Results and figures (8 pts.)
Discussion (5 pts.)
Overall presentation (5 pts.)