Lab Report: Food Macromolecules
- Title
- Help orient your reader to what work was performed. Be descriptive/specific.
- Abstract
- 150-250 words (=about one medium-length paragraph, 5-10 sentences long).
- You should have 1-2 sentences for each of the following, in this order: (1) broad introduction to the study topic, (2) specific details on your study system, (3) statement of hypothesis, statement of your main findings, (4) briefly statement of future directions and (5) overall project importance/implications.
- Introduction
- Envision like an upside-down triangle:
- First, broadly to discuss the topic (what other research has been done in this area?).
- Next, move to specifics about your study system (why is your study system interesting?).
- Last, conclude by briefly discussing (1-2 sentences each) (1) how the experiment was performed, (2) your hypothesis or study goals, and (3-optional!) your major takeaways.
- Cite to scientific papers in this section!
- Envision like an upside-down triangle:
- Materials & Methods
- Tell your readers how the work was done. Do not write a list of instructions or command your reader what to do.
- Use either first or third person- it’s your choice.
- Mention specific brand or reagent names of items if it is important
- Optional: include a figure showing your experimental setup if it helps illustrate your point (but this is not required!)
- Results
- Very short-and-sweet. Tell your readers what you found- do NOT interpret what happened! (That’s for the discussion section!).
- You do not have to worry about statistical results here (i.e., there are no numbers or test names to report). You did a qualitative (not quantitative) experiment!
- Refer to specific tables and/or figures here to help readers visualize your findings.
- •Experimental setup
- Benedict’s , Lugols Iodone Test , Biurets , and the grease spot test
- Discussion
- Start by restating your hypothesis or study goals. State if your hypothesis or goals were supported or refuted by this work.
- State what your study found. Contextualize these findings with the work performed by other scientists. What was similar or different?
- Cite to scientific papers here!
- Propose future research that should be done. What else could be done to increase our scientific knowledge? (… that’s not repeating your experiment again with different organisms or more replication!)
- Conclude with a short paragraph:
- First, restate your hypothesis/goals and whether they were upheld by this study (1-2 sentences)
- Then, state your major findings and whether they agree with other researcher’s work (1-2 sentences)
- Last, mention an idea or two for future research, and state why this work will be important to increase our scientific knowledge.
- Literature Cited
- A MINIMUM of two primary literature papers are used. (Note: Probably 4-6 will be better!)
- All papers used in-text are cited in this section (and vice-versa).
- Use primary literature (=papers in scientific journals), not secondary or tertiary sources (i.e., Google, popular press articles, a website you found…). If you’re not sure, ask Matthew (our embedded librarian) or me if the source you found will count!
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