This is not intended to be an exact skeleton for the body of your report, but more of a
guideline to help you put your report together in the proper format of a scientific article. The
body of your report may include more information about some of the bullet points and less
for others. It depends on your question, its purpose, and your results. Pictures are not
necessary but are encouraged!
Title Page (5 points)
– Title
– Complete name
– Lab section (121-__)
Introduction (20 points)
– This section should be written as an argumentative paper. You are trying to convince
your audience that this research is important
A. Opening
– State introducing question/hypothesis
– What value does this information have
B. Background information relative to Urea/Urease
a. What organisms in the environment use urease to break down urea?
b. Why does this organism(s) need urease?
c. How is this relevant to humans ecologically and/or commercially?
C. Background information on the urea/urease enzymatic reaction
a. What is an enzyme?
b. What are the substrates?
c. What is the product?
D. Closing statement
a. Re-state the question
b. How are you going to answer this question, i.e. what are your treatments?
c. How will these treatments help you to answer your questions?
d. How will you quantify your results?
III. Procedures (15 points)
– Think in terms of a recipe, someone else could come in and do exactly what you
have done by reading this. Steps must be numerical or bulleted.
A. Step by step detailed procedure
B. Written so someone else could precisely duplicate your test
o From Set of Standards → data collection
o Justify procedures!!!
C. How were Urea and Urease solutions prepared? (by lab technician)
– Why is phenol red added to Urea broth?
– pH meter was calibrated by lab technician
IV. Results (15 points)
C. Graphically represent data two ways
o 2 tables (5 points)
– Table for set of standards
– Table for experimental data
o Computer Generated Graph (10 points)
– Labeled correctly
– Trends should be obvious to audience
– Extra credit if you include standard deviations for your results
V. Conclusion (20 points)
A. Interpret results
1. Re-state question
– Did your results support or do your results not support your hypothesis?
– Explain why you think this (based on data)
B. Explain your results in terms of how the enzyme was affected by the conditions you exposed it to
1. If there was no significant difference between the results, why do you think you got these results?
2. If there was a surprising difference between results of your treatments, why do you think you got these results?
3. Was there some error in experimental design execution?
– Is your data a result of poor experimental design / human error / or unforeseen circumstances?
C. Would you modify experiment
1. Would you do the test differently if doing it over
2. If so, how would you do it differently
– For example, but not limited to:
a. Different number of treatments
b. Different types of treatments
c. Number of replicates
d. Change in procedure
D. Next step in researching question
o New questions
– Good science ends up with more questions than answers. What are additional
questions you have and/or what is the next step in your research?
– For example: Different experiment based on data collected from this one
E. Closing statement
VI. Literature Cited (5 points)
– At least three references
o Not including lab manual or textbook
– In CSE format