Cell bio Lab report guide- Practical 2 PDF

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Download Cell bio Lab report guide- Practical 2 PDF

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4BBY1030 Cell Biology and Neuroscience

How to write a laboratory report Background Describing experimental procedures and presenting and discussing the obtained results in a clear and informed way are important skills that you will need throughout your degree programme and possibly also later in your professional life. The laboratory write-up should neither be a lengthy essay nor a series of bullet points. Its aim is to provide the reader with the necessary information for them to repeat the experiment, and to evaluate and discuss your results. On 4BBY1030 Cell Biology and Neuroscience, you should write two laboratory reports: 

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The first one, based on Practical 2 Introduction to histological staining (this year provided in video format), is formative - it will not count towards the final module mark. It is for practice and you will exchange feedback with your peers. The deadline for submission is Thursday, 26th November, and you have one week after that to submit your peer feedback. The second one, based on Practical 3 Immunohistochemistry (this year provided as an interactive lab simulation), is summative – it counts 30% towards the final module mark. The deadline is Tuesday, 26th January, and you will receive your mark and feedback within four weeks.

How to structure the report The lab report must be typed and must include two hand-drawn figures (see below). Word counts must be adhered to – if you do not stick to the word count, you will lose points. The lab report must follow the following format: 1. Cover page: Include the title (this should be the name of the practical) and the date when you took the practical (because the practicals are online this year, this should be the date when you did the online activity). 2. Introduction (max. 150 words): This should cover the aims of the practical and you should briefly state what you were trying to achieve in the practical class. You may also provide a little bit of background information on the experimental procedure or the type of specimen that you are looking at.

3. Materials and Methods (this does not contribute to the word count): A protocol of the practical procedure will be available on the module’s KEATS page. This must be included with your write-up because a lab report should enable others to follow the procedure without having to rely on external resources. You can simply copy-and-paste or attach the protocol. 4. Results (max. 300 words): This section should contain a brief description of the results obtained. What are your observations? What can you see on the microscopic images? The background to this is provided in the online presentations on KEATS. 5. Figures: You must include two self-drawn images based on the microscopic images provided on KEATS (it is up to you which of the images you choose to draw). Just draw what you can see. Artistic ability is not being assessed here, so do not be concerned if your drawing skills are poor. It is more important that you label your drawings properly and that the key findings are represented. You can hand-draw your images and photograph them on your phone, or you can use a graphics design software if you prefer. Each figure must have a legend (next to, or below the figure) that briefly explains the content of the image (‘What can be seen?’, ‘Is there an obvious orientation to the specimen?’, ‘Is this a high or a low magnification?’) and that defines the meaning of all symbols (arrows, asterisks) and abbreviations used in the figure. The figure legends do not count toward the overall word count, but they should be as brief as possible without omitting essential information.

5. Conclusions (max. 200 words): This is where you should briefly discuss the results. For example, you could say whether all of the cells and structures that you expected to see could indeed be identified. If you think that the result is not optimal, what could have improved

the experimental outcome? Can you think of other ways of improving the experiment? What are the potential applications of this approach? 6. References: You may include up to three references, but as your report should be confined to information given during the practical class and the results, references are not necessary. An exemplary lab report on a different experiment (not from this module) is shown on the module KEATS page to give you a better idea of the structure of the lab report. Please note that this lab report only has one figure, but that you are meant to provide two figures in your report. The marking criteria/feedback sheet for the lab report is also shown on KEATS. This should give you an idea what we are looking for in a good lab report.

MAIN POINTS      

Keep to the word limits Keep to the topic Keep to the guidelines on figures, references etc. Use scientific language, but do not overcomplicate it Stick to the deadline It has to be your own work!

Plagiarism King’s has a strict approach to plagiarism. All online submissions run through a plagiarism detection software called Turnitin. Turnitin maintains a database of student submissions from our and from other institutions in order to identify text that has been reproduced without attribution. Once work has been submitted, the software searches its database as well as other sources such as the internet and online journals for matching text. Any student work submitted via Turnitin will be stored in the database (along with the student’s name, email address, programme/module details and institution) and will then form part of the body of student work against which future submissions from this and other institutions will be compared. For more information on plagiarism see the links under ‘Assessment’ on KEATS: https://keats.kcl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=50621 For more information on Turnitin and online submission, see the KEATS student support course: https://keats.kcl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=12967

As you are including the protocol of the procedure in your Materials & Methods section of the lab report, your Turnitin score in this section will be high. Do not worry about that. However, you need to make sure that there is no plagiarism in the other sections of your report that you have written yourself.

Handing in by the deadline and late submissions Note that for handing in the lab report, the date and time given for submission means that all reports must be handed in by the date given and before the time specified, or late penalties will apply. When submitting online, last minute uploads may be held up in a queue leading to a late submission. Please note the following from the College Mitigating Circumstances guidance: “IT and/or computer failure It is your responsibility to ensure that all work which is electronically stored, generated and/or submitted is sufficiently backed up and the correct piece of work is submitted.” When submitting online to Turnitin on the module’s KEATS webpage, please be sure to leave yourself plenty of time to deal with any computing issues in uploading your work. It is important that you do not leave your submission to the last minute, so that you have plenty of time to ensure your submission is successful and correct, and in case you experience any difficulties in uploading the submission. Work submitted on the deadline will be marked as late and late penalties will apply. For example, if the deadline is 16:00 (4:00 pm), you must have completed submitting your assignment by 15:59:59 at the latest.

Work submitted up to 24 hours after the deadline will be marked, but the grade awarded will be capped at the pass mark of 40%. Students will be informed what mark would have been awarded had the cap not been applied and will receive feedback on their work. Work submitted more than 24 hours after the deadline will receive a mark of zero. Feedback and an indicative grade can be provided upon request. If you have to miss the deadline for the submission of the summative lab report in January for reasons outside of your control, you need to submit a Mitigating Circumstances Form (MCF). Please see the module booklet and KEATS for further details.

No MCFs should be submitted for formative assessments, so if you miss the submission of your formative lab report on November 26th for reasons outside of your control, please contact the module organiser....