MCB 3020L Lab Report Guidelines: Experiment 9

Causative Agent Identification & Treatment Recommendation

These are some basic guidelines & general information on how to format/write your lab report.
The writing of all sections of reports and figure labels/legends must be done individually. Please
refer to the Undergraduate Handbook & the syllabus for the consequences of plagiarism.
SUMMARIZE IN YOUR OWN WORDS AND APPROPRIATELY REFERENCE SOURCES UTILIZED. If you
have taken this lab before and turned in a lab report, the current report must be completely re-
written and utilize new materials/figures reflecting work from this semester. Sharing your written
work and/or figures with other students is not permitted. If you have any questions or concerns,
please discuss with your TA/Instructor before turning in your report.

You will submit an electronic copy of your lab report to Turnitin AND a hard-copy to your TA.
(Please refer to the syllabus for additional details)

Formatting: Lab reports must be typed, double-spaced in 11-12 point font, and include page
numbers in the main body of the report. There is an 8-page limit, not including the title page,
figures/tables, and references. Hard-copies should be stapled only – no binders/folders. Please
spell-check and proofread your work as writing and mechanics is assessed in the grading rubric.
Use headings for each section. Formal writing should not mirror casual conversation. Use the past
tense to describe experiments that were done. Refer to the grading rubric and details below for
more specific directions.

General Guidelines:
 Please save and backup your work, and do not wait until the last minute to work on this report
as technical and/or last minute issues are often unpredictable.
 Be sure to represent organism names correctly (refer to Appendix II in the lab manual).
 NO QUOTATIONS! Text quotations are typically not utilized in scientific writing. Always restate
in your own words, and reference the source of information.
 Only utilize credible sources. Examples include: text books, your lab manual, and scientific
journal articles (review articles and/or primary research articles). If you are uncertain about a
particular source, ask your TA before you start writing your report.
 You MUST include citations throughout the text of your report. Failure to include in-text
citations (e.g. Smith et al., 2013) is a form of plagiarism!
 Websites are typically not an appropriate reference source
 You will be using tables &/or figures to display and help explain your data results. Tables and
figures MUST be fully and properly labeled, with a written legend & an explanation of the
results in the main body of the text.
 This is a scientific record of your journey through experiment #9. It is a record of what YOU did,
what happened, the results of the experiments performed, and your interpretation of your
results. This may include deviations from the lab manual directions as instructed by your TA or
may indicate if/where mistakes were made. It needs to be written objectively, with no
personal feelings or bias, in the 3rd person.
Figure/Table draft (15 pts)

Select one figure or table you plan to include in your lab report from the data you have collected
thus far, during lab #9. You will submit a hard-copy and electronic draft of:

 The figure/table, including a title and written legend

 A Results section, written, short paragraph describing and calling attention to the data
displayed in the figure/table.

Follow proper formatting as detailed in the Results section guidelines. This draft has a one page
limit for the figure/table and Results paragraph. This assignment provides you with an opportunity
to receive some feedback from your TA prior to submitting your full lab report. Choose a
figure/table to construct based on the data you have collected thus far during experiment #9.
Ensure the figure legend is visually distinct from the results paragraph text. This assignment is
worth a total of 15pts and will be graded on completeness, accuracy, writing and mechanics, and
proper formatting. Provide references in-text and in list format if any sources were utilized for the
data and writing presented (see Reference guidelines below).

The Lab Report (70 pts)

You will be writing a lab report based on Experiment #9: Causative agent identification and
treatment recommendation. Refer to the Lab Report Guidelines above for general instructions on
how to write a lab report. Your lab report will be submitted in hard-copy and electronic copy and
should include the following sections:

Title Page: The title of the experiment, your name, your Unknown patient isolate #, the date,
and the course title with section number should be included.

Summary: The summary should be 1-3 paragraphs, including brief description of the purpose
of the exercise and overall strategy of your experimental design and experimental methods
utilized. This should be followed by a statement of your results and main conclusions drawn,
including any identification of the causative agent and treatment recommendation you were
able to make. This section should provide a concise overview of the information presented in
the report. (1 page)

Material and Methods: This section should be divided into sub-sections with
meaningful/relevant sub-headings and written in paragraph form using concise sentences.
Briefly state the procedures you performed in lab. Do not include unnecessary detail, but be
thorough enough so that someone else could understand and repeat the procedure. Be sure
to include all media and tests utilized, including how you inoculated the media. (~2 pages)
The lab manual should be cited, but this section must be written in your own words – not
copied from the lab manual!

Results: Results reflect what was actually done in the lab and should be presented clearly and
concisely in complete paragraphs based on your observations. Be sure to state the results
(observations and basic meaning/interpretation of your observations), but avoid extensive
discussion of the final conclusions of what your results mean in terms of causative agent
identification/treatment recommendation in this section.

Data should be presented in properly labeled and organized tables and/or figures where
appropriate in addition to being described in paragraph text. These should be labeled, both
numerically and with titles. Data figures and tables should have written legends containing
sufficient information so that they can stand alone. Be sure to number tables and figures
consecutively, and refer to them in the text of this section. If you use a figure/table you must
MUST call attention to and describe it in the written text! You may choose to include the final
version of your flow chart as a figure here, in addition to your data figures/tables. (~2 pages
written text)

How to write a figure legend: The first sentence of a figure legend is the title for the figure.
Other information to include (depending on the nature of the data displayed in the figure):
• What is the result/analysis shown, what experimental procedure was used?
• What material/sample are we looking at?
• What important conditions should be mentioned?
• Any definition of abbreviations or additional labels to note/describe?
• Error bars, statistical tests, and significance should be defined (where applicable).
• If figures include multiple parts (e.g. A, B, C), define what is presented in each.
Look at examples from relevant research articles and think about what you need to include, in
concise a way as possible, for the reader to understand what is displayed from the figure and
figure legend alone.

Formatting examples of in-text referral to data provided in figures/tables:

 As shown in Figure 2, there was no change to the medium around……
 After incubation on an MSA plate, the bacterium grew with no color change to the
medium (Figure 2).

Discussion: Explain the meaning or significance of your results/interpretation of the data:

 Were you able to identify your unknown agent here? Discuss how you came to your
conclusion, why you chose to use a particular medium/test, what the test reveals and
why. Reference lab manual and any other sources used.
 Discuss relevant background information on the causative agent identified and how it
typically causes infection in a human patient. How do you anticipate infection of a
human patient with this agent to present and why? Include description of a molecular
mechanism of pathogenesis known to occur with this bacterium. Suggestion: Find at
least one review article to use as a reference for this information in addition to
utilizing information from the lab manual and possibly your text book. Be sure to
always paraphrase in your own words and provide in-text citations.
 Identify and discuss your treatment recommendation based on the results of your
antimicrobial screen. Include mention of how the antibiotic chosen targets and impacts
the causative agent. Reference lab manual and any other sources used.
 Identify potential sources of error or any experimental issues that arose and suggest
how these may have impacted the results. Any speculation here when discussing
 unexpected findings should be based on logical rationale and your understanding of the
techniques or principles involved. Unexpected results often arise from explainable
causes and should be discussed as best as possible.
 Discuss any changes or improvements you would make if you were to repeat any of
these experiments and why.

In this section, you will want to discuss the results/data you obtained. Even though you are
using your own words/thoughts to discuss your experiment, you will still need to refer to
background sources to discuss your results, the causative agent identified, & its significance.
You will need to cite within this section, as you do with all other sections of your report. (~3
pages)

References: This section provides an alphabetical list of all reference material that has been
cited in your paper. You should include any sources you used to write your report, including
the lab manual. You should have at least 4 scientific sources. All in-text references should be
listed in the reference list, and all references in the list should be cited somewhere in the body
of the report. References should adhere to the following formatting style:

Reference list formatting:

Book/Textbook:
Alexander, J. M. 1970. The Occurrence of Starches in Plants. Martin Press, New York. 486 pp.

Book chapter:
Alexander, J. M. 1972. The occurrence of starches in higher plants. In: R. R. Jordon and
M. M. Taylor (eds.), Carbohydrate Reserves. Martin Press, New York. 276 pp.

Journal articles:
Alexander, J. M. 1968. Occurrence of starches in bryophytes. Bot. Gaz. 127: 176-199.
Alexander, J. M., B. J. Martin, and T. R. Smith. 1969. Occurrence of starches in ferns. Am.
J. Bot. 47: 9-18.

Lab manual example (update details for current semester):

CMMB Department. 2018. Microbiology Lab Manual MCB 3020L, Fall 2018. University of South
Florida. Pro-Copy, Tampa, FL. Print.

In-text citation (in the body of the report) formatting:

…suggested that carbohydrates are the preferred energy source utilized (Alexander, 1968).
…found starch in all ferns examined (Alexander, 1968; Alexander et al., 1969).

One author: Alexander

Two authors: Alexander and Smith
Three or more authors: Alexander et al.

In-text citation format for lab manual: (CMMB, 2018)

Important Notes: You MUST turn in a hard-copy to your TA AND upload your report to Turnitin.
Both the hard-copy and electronic copy must be received by the deadline to avoid late penalties.
Your lab report will not be graded unless both copies are received. You MUST include citations
throughout your text in the report and all writing must be in your own words. DO NOT COPY what
is in the lab manual, textbook, etc. Discussion of results with others is permitted, but your report
MUST BE IN YOUR OWN WORDS and must utilize your own data and figures! DO NOT SHARE
YOUR WRITTEN WORK WITH OTHER STUDENTS. DO NOT USE QUOTATIONS. If you have any
questions, please discuss with your TA/Instructor before turning in your report.