Question

Activity 1: Scientific Reports

You may have heard the question “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” A similar question can be asked about experiments. “If a researcher performs an experiment and never publishes the result has science been performed?” Many people would say no because science is the accumulation of knowledge. If the results of an experiment are not published, knowledge is not gained. The final and very important step in the scientific process is to inform others of what you learned. Scientific reports have a specific format that is followed, with information organized into sections.

Introduction – This is when you describe why the experiment was done and the importance of it. You explain what your hypothesis and predictions were.

Methods – This section describes what you did in enough detail that someone could repeat your experiment.

Results – What did you find out? This is where you present your data.

Discussion – An explanation of your results. How does what you found relate to what others have found out?   

References – This is a list of sources you used and cited in your paper.

Exercise 1: Formatting

• Why is it important for scientific reports to have a specific format?

Activity 2: Title

Your audience should understand what the experiment was about from the title. Many times, readers only have the title of a paper to determine whether they want to read the report or not. If it is too general, it will not spark any interest in an audience. If it is too long, it will seem wordy.

Exercise 2: Title

1. Use of Various Sugars During Fermentation by Yeast
2. Yeast Experiment
3. Production Of Carbon Dioxide as a Measure of the Usefulness of Sucrose and Glucose as Food Sources for the Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) in Small Erlenmeyer Flasks

• Which of the above titles is the best? Why?

Activity 3: Abstract

Abstracts are summaries and should concisely explain what the report contains. The abstract appears below the title of the report. Unlike a summary of a book that sometimes does not give away the ending, a scientific abstract tells the whole story. At the minimum, the abstract should have at least one sentence for each section (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion). This section should be written last.

Exercise 3: Abstract

1. Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) can use various sugars as food sources during fermentation. We tested the ability of yeast to use the monosaccharide glucose versus the disaccharide sucrose. The yeast produced carbon dioxide at an average rate of 10 ppm/minute when given glucose as a food source and 8 ppm/minute when given sucrose as a food source. Using carbon dioxide production, glucose was shown to be a better food source for yeast.
2. We tested which sugar is a better food source for yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Glucose is a six-carbon monosaccharide and sucrose is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose. During fermentation glucose is changed into ethanol and carbon dioxide. By measuring the amount of carbon dioxide produced we can determine which sugar is a better food source for the yeast. We used a sensor attached to the computer to measure carbon dioxide production for 10 minutes and then determine a rate of carbon dioxide.

• Which of the above abstracts is better? Why?

Activity 4: Introduction

Your introduction should start off with some general concepts about the subject area. If you are doing an experiment on sugar production during photosynthesis, you should concisely describe photosynthesis to your audience. (You must have in-text citations for every fact you present in the report, as verification of that fact’s validity.) Then, explain the purpose of your experiment. Tell your audience what you expected to learn from the experiment. Finally, you need to state your hypothesis and prediction(s).

Remember, the hypothesis is the logical explanation of a scientific problem. The prediction is what should happen in your experiment if your hypothesis is correct. For example, you hypothesize a plant will undergo photosynthesis faster using blue light than green light. However, you cannot see photosynthesis directly happening. But you can measure the product of photosynthesis: sugars. So your prediction can be, if you placed a group of plants under green light and another group under blue light, then the plants under blue light would produce more sugars due to their higher rate of photosynthesis.

Exercise 4: Introduction

1. Yeast are unicellular organisms that belong to the Kingdom Fungi and in an anaerobic environment (one without oxygen), they will produce ethanol and carbon dioxide as a byproduct of fermentation (Freeman, 2011). During the production of wine, yeast use the monosaccharide fructose as the reactant for fermentation (Freeman, 2011). But there are many different types of monosaccarides, glucose being the most widely used as an energy source by organisms (Freeman, 2011). We tested whether yeast could use other types of sugars for fermentation. We hypothesized yeast would ferment glucose more easily than other monosaccarides and if we tested glucose, fructose, and galactose, then glucose would result in the most rapid rate of carbon dioxide production.
2. We did this lab to learn how to do the scientific method. Yeast are small and make the alcohol in your wine. I think yeast are amazing organisms because they help us by making dough rise and of course they are really important because they produce the alcohol in beer and wine and western society would be very different if we did not have beer and wine to drink. So, the instructor made us test the yeast to see why they make different amounts of alcohol.

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• In the above introductions put a box around the purpose, underline the hypothesis, and    

the prediction (if they have one).

• Of the two introductions, which is better? Why?

Answer 1

Ex:1) the scintific data should be put in a very specific mannar or a format which is generally be universally fallowed so that it is easy for grasping and understanding by the scintific and nonscintific community. If the data represented in a proper formet reader able to go to the part of his interest from the whole content directly. Not only that he can able to find all important things like the final result or the methods or the graphs easily just by seeing it. Just by reading abstract he able to know summary of whole content . Hence, by putting every scintific analysis in the same manner saves time, increase undrstandability of the research papers.

Ex:2) title A is correct. Because, it's not too lengthy describing the whole content or it is not too general or small to avoid telling major concept of the experiment. It described the theme of research in a presised and understandable mannar.

Ex:3) abstract A is better. It is describing the concept of experiment well and in a direct mannar without going into minute details unlike the abstract 2 in which the structure of glucose unnecessarily described. abstract1 also includes presisely the method of experiment and the results as well. Hence it is better.

Ex:4) introduction A is correct. Because, in this it included the description of the microorganism in detail with references sited where required. In this detailed description of every part of the experiment is given and just by seeing it we able to understand the whole knowledge background the experiment. Hence it is correct.