Your TAs expectations for the Plant Lab Report
Title: Must describe what was done, which in your case was assessing the effects of a particular nutrient deficiency on B. rapa.
Intro: Be sure to use the rubric as your primary guide for writing this report, but I will clarify my expectations a bit:
-The main points to bring up regard plant nutrition, the importance of nutrients on plant growth/development, and the use of deficiencies to assess the role of individual nutrients. I’d expect you to use 2-3 solid paragraphs to describe
(1) the importance of nutrients (essential, macro, micro)
(2) deficiencies, and their use in studies of plant nutrition
(3) the importance of the nutrient that we have removed, and the expected phenotypic outcome from such a deficiency
The other points in the intro section are sufficiently covered in the rubric.
Methods: Being sure to document each of the steps taken to collect the data, not just what you specifically did in lab: IN OTHER WORDS, describe the technical process for getting stomatal density counts, pigment concentrations, plant height, and chlorosis. If you are not sure what was done, discuss with your labmates, and/or me. Remember, this section should have a documentational tone, meaning that you are describing what was done, NOT telling someone how to do the work. Ask me if you feel uncertain as to what the difference between those two writing styles might be. Lastly, and IMPORTANTLY, use subheadings to differentiate each task within your methods section. See the following example:
METHODS:
Plant Growth
Brassica rapa was grown in….
Stomatal Density Counting
One adult leaf from each quadrant was harvested and a thin layer of nail polish (acetone-based) was applied to the underside of each and allowed 5 min. to dry….
Pigment Extraction
One adult leaf from each quadrant was harvested and two leaf sections (totaling an area of 1.13cm^2) were…
Stem Height Measurement
Plant height was measured using….
Note how each part of your methods is distinct, easy-to-find, and easier-to-read when given a clear heading. Feel free to do the same with your results section if you find that this helps.
Results: Be sure to include a written section of results and keep it contiguous, meaning please do not insert figures between written parts of the results – just add the figures all together AFTER the results section. The goal in your results section is to ‘introduce’ each of your figures/tables that you’ve created from your data [for example: Stomatal density was determined from counting the nail-polish imprint of leaf undersides (Table 2). Treatments of 100%, 50%, 0% calcium resulted in average stomatal densities of 54, 67, 89 stomata/cm^2, respectively. Despite the numerical difference, no comparison between treatments yielded a significant difference, as made evident by statistical analysis via A Student’s t-test wherein all P-values obtained were greater than 0.05] – note that I introduced the stomatal counts, their corresponding figure, and then dredged up some of the most important data points that could be found from examining the figure.
Figures/Tables:
Firstly, you all should have a minimum of four figs/tables to provide:
Plant height, stomatal density, pigment concentration, chlorosis ratio. Feel free to represent this data however you’d like. You can use tables, bar graphs, etc. Please note that line graphs would be inappropriate for any of the data that we’ve collected, as none of it was collected over a timecourse . You do not need to provide tables of the raw data, but only tables/figs of the processed data (averages, with statistics).
A VERY IMPORTANT POINT for this section: with figures, title and caption go BELOW
With tables, title and caption go ABOVE
The title is simply ‘Figure X’ or ‘Table x’, and the caption should be 1-3 lines that indicate a description of the data – should make it clear to the reader what data is being represented
Discussion: focus on the comparison of your results to what was expected, what is stated in the literature, and the explanation of unexpected results. DO NOT cite human error – this is a rookie mistake in writing lab reports and does nothing more than to tell the reader that you do not trust your own handiwork in lab – a very scary thought to someone who has just spent 20 minutes reading your report.
References: Five proper references are required, a minimum of three must be from a primary source. By my book, primary source materials are those that are published in scientific journals and are written by those who have personally conducted the research that is being reported. A sufficient secondary source is an authoritative text/publication that directly used the primary resources. I will NOT accept websites, dictionaries, encyclopedia entries and other dubious sources toward your minimum of five references.
Writing Style: Flow is something that is harder to teach, but is a gradable part of these reports. Flow/clarity of writing originate from developing a good report structure of paragraphs that move from one idea to the next, and using a writing style that adheres to the standard and formality of report writing. A couple pointers that I can provide: never address the reader directly, meaning never use the word ‘you’ in your scientific writing; never use contractions, always use a single paragraph to encapsulate a single idea, a good paragraph starts with a topic sentence and ends with a review that segues into the next paragraph.
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