BIO244 General Microbiology Identification of an Unknown Bacterial Culture Laboratory Report Format Guide
Guidelines for Writing the Formal Science Laboratory Report
The scientific paper for the bacterial unknowns should have the following sections: Title, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion and Literature Cited. The actual words “Introduction”, “Materials and Methods”, “Results”, “Discussion”, “Conclusion”, and “Literature Cited” should be underlined or appear in bold, left justified, and used to head the sections of the paper. Sections of the paper should run continuously with a space between each as shown below, not on separate pages. Throughout the whole narrative of the report do not use pronouns (e.g. I, we, they), instead use the third person descriptive style. For example, instead of writing “I used a blood agar plate,” write, “A blood agar plate was used.” Aspects of the experiment should be discussed in past tense; you already did it and need to write about it from that perspective. The language used should be formal and the report should be written for a broad audience who is not likely to be familiar with this particular experiment, but you can assume some level of basic biology class knowledge. Remember to use the proper italicized binomial nomenclature for the names of the organisms. The report should be typed, double spaced, with 12-point font and one inch margins. Your name, the submission date, and course section number should appear in the upper left corner of the first page above the title. The pages should be numbered on the bottom sequentially beginning with the first page. No cover pages or report covers of any kind should be included. Citation of reference sources should be done in the “CSE name-year system” style (Last name Year of publication) and the source should appear in the Literature Cited section using proper CSE format for scientific publications.
Title The title should succinctly describe the specific analysis or study that is being conducted, for example: “Guidelines for Writing a Science Laboratory Report”. The title should appear centered at the top of the paper on the first page with all words that are not articles or prepositions (a, an, the, and, on, of, for, etc.) beginning with a capital letter.
Introduction In this section, briefly describe the experiment. State a hypothesis (an “if then” statement that may require multiple sentences) that is clear and appropriately addresses the purpose of this laboratory exercise. For example “If the collective results of a profile of key biochemical assays are compared to the known results for limited subset of bacterial species, then a specific unknown culture from that subset of bacterial species can be correctly identified based on the results obtained from the biochemical assays.” (Write your own: do not plagiarize this one!) Give background information regarding the experiment and discuss why this experimental topic is of interest. Be sure to include general characteristics of bacteria, and the global significance of bacteria and bacterial identification. Describe in a general sense the types of tools used in the culturing and identification of bacteria and include an explanation of why different media are used to assay for different enzyme production by microorganisms and how the results are important to the identification process. Reference sources are required and must be cited appropriately. Weave your introduction into a cohesive flow that tells a story to the audience about bacteria and why researchers find it important to identify them. Avoid simply listing disjointed quotes. The introduction is an essay, not a bulleted list, and should tell the audience a story about bacteria, identification, and the purpose of your experiment. Other than the hypothesis statement and explanation of the experiment, all the factoids that you weave together in this section should be cited; they are facts you collected from various sources to tell your story, not creative writing. If you outline a good story and cover all the key
Amy Warenda Czura, Ph.D. 47 SCCC BIO244 Laboratory Supplemental Packet

points mentioned, this section is likely to be three plus pages long. Do not worry if it is “too long”. Be concerned if it is too short. This is the only real creative part of the scientific paper and length will vary depending on your own personal style. A minimalist should still have about three pages if all required aspects are covered.
Materials and Methods This section is used to describe the materials and methods employed during the key laboratory exercise experiments. Include only the bare minimum key assays that were necessary to solve your unknown; these are the ones listed on your dichotomous key in the path to your organism. In cases where multiple assays were employed to determine one characteristic, only one type of assay need be presented. The four or five assays that appear here will be the same ones that you present in the Results and Discussion sections of this paper. For the Materials and Methods section describe each essential assay separately in a separate paragraph. Begin each description with a brief statement of the characteristic or characteristics the particular media or staining procedure is examining but do not explain how it all works; that belongs in the Discussion section. Include the name (e.g. MacConkey Agar, Tryptone Broth, etc.) and type (e.g. defined, complex, differential, selective) of media used to grow the organism and list any reagents or indicators (e.g. Phenol red, iodine, etc.) that are either present in the media or that had to be added following incubation or used for staining in order to be able to visually score the results. Indicate how the media was inoculated and the time and temperature of incubation, or how the staining procedure was performed. Do not include the enzymatic reactions here: save those for the Discussion. Keep in mind that this section should be written like the instruction paragraph of a cookbook: it is a ‘how to’ for the experiments you performed. Include the lab manual in the Literature Cited section and cite it for each procedure as it was the source of your directions.
Results Create a data table for the organism in which to display the results of the necessary and relevant biochemical tests and observations used in the exploration and identification of the unknown culture. Include only the key assays you described in Materials and Methods, not every test that was performed. Only the observed outcome and basic results of the experiments should be described in the table. Interpretation of the data regarding the full meaning of the observations or enzymatic reactions and their use in identification of the unknown should instead be included in the Discussion section. The Results table should contain column headings for the following categories: 1. “Assay/Characteristic” in which you name the characteristic you are assaying your unknown for with the staining procedure or media being employed, such as “Gram Stain Reaction” or “Lactose Fermentation”. 2. “Media/Source” in which you state the name of the medium being used to assay the particular characteristic (e.g. MacConkey agar) or the source material for the procedure (e.g. heat fixed smear). Keep in mind that some media can be used to assay multiple characteristics and should be listed separately for each characteristic in the chart. For example, MacConkey agar can be used to determine both Gram reaction and lactose fermentation but list those two aspects separa

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