OSMOSIS THROUGH A DIALYSIS MEMBRANE: A SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT

REPORT GUIDELINES

You can work with other groups to discuss how your report will be structured and what you will be including in it, but each group must work on its own report. You can write the same concepts, but using your own words. If two reports say exactly the same, the grade will be divided by two.

FORMAT

Double-spaced on standard-sized paper (8.5″ x 11″), with 1″ margins on all sides, Arial or Times New Roman, 12pt font

TITLE

It should have an informative title. Title should give an idea about the content of the report (do not title it ‘osmosis’ or ‘bio 23 lab report’, it is too broad for guessing the actual content of the report).

SECTIONS

The report should have the following sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusion, and References cited. Materials and Methods and Results sections are due on (a week after the lab), and the full report is due (before lab midterm exam).

INTRODUCTION SECTION

You can think in the intro as the background you provide to someone who does not know anything about the subject. The intro should give the reader basic information so he or she can understand the results and the discussion.

You may want to include at least this basic information in the introduction: 1. what osmosis is and why it is an important process for the proper functioning of cells, 2. What isotonic, hypertonic, and hypotonic mean, 3.  what a dialysis bag is, and why you use it in this experiment

You should clearly state your hypothesis(es) and your prediction(s) in the intro. See BIO23 study guide (page 102) to learn more about this.

MATERIALS AND METHODS SECTION

You may want to describe each step you did in the experiment but not the results (results go in the next section). The idea of the material and methods section is to provide a “recipe” for the reader in case s/he wants to repeat the experiment. Do not write a list (do not copy from the manual something like: 1-…, 2-…, etc). Describe with your own words what materials you used and what you did.

The answer to these questions should be included in this section: 1. Why you used a dialysis tube, 2. why you weighted the bags, 3. why you used the solutes you used

You can illustrate the setup using a picture you took during the lab, or making a sketch of the setup.

RESULTS SECTION

You may want to describe briefly (in a paragraph or two) what you found in the experiment. Moreover, you should summarize your results using tables and graphs. Each table/graph should be accompanied with a title (so the reader knows what it is about). Graphs should include a title, axes labeled and the exes units.

CONCLUSION SECTION

In this section you go back to your hypotheses and predictions and compare them with your results. You have to “discuss” the results: Do your results support or reject your hypothesis? Did you see what you predicted? Why (explain)? Why not (speculate)? Elaborate a little bit on that. You may want to (briefly) propose another experiment that may give more insight into the subject, or propose some improvement in the experimental design that may improve this one.

REFERENCES CITED

Use your own words to write the paper. All facts and ideas that are not yours have to be cited. There are various citation styles. We will use the APA (American Psychological Association) Style. Use this quick reference guide (APA Quick Citation Guide): http://guides.libraries.psu.edu/apaquickguide/intext Revise this guide before starting, so you can work on citations as you are doing the paper and do not have to go back to work on citations at the end. Make sure to cite everything that is not yours. Blackboard checks for plagiarism. If you cite what you include, you are fine.

GENERAL RUBRIC TO GRADE LAB REPORT

Your lab report will be evaluated based on the rubric found below. Use it to as another guideline on what to include in the report.