While it is important to correctly identify each of your organisms, the scientific process you use to reach this identification is also important. The report must follow the format for a traditional lab report. Therefore, it must include the following sections:  Title page, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and References. The written report is worth 32 points and the organism identification is worth 8 points (4 points for correctly identifying each organism).    Overall Format (4 points): ·      Arial 12 point font, double spaced, 1 inch margins ·      Entire report cannot be more than 8 pages in length. Points will be deducted for each additional page.  ·      No use of personal pronouns or quotations ·      All organisms must be written in proper nomenclature ·      Must use headings for each section (Introduction, Methods and Materials, Results, Discussion and References) and have a separate title page.   Title page: This should be the first page of your paper and should be centered. It must include: ·      Name for your experiment. Choose a name that describes the main point of the article and don’t simply put “Identification of unknown bacteria”. Get creative! ·      Your name and unknown number ·      Date ·      Identity of both unknown organisms   Introduction: (5 points) This section should contain the background information for your paper.  ·      Provide a general explanation as to why we use Gram staining and biochemical testing to identify unknown bacteria. ·      Include your statement of purpose and how it relates to the background information.  ·      What was the conclusion from your statement of purpose? ·      Include the 6 possible organisms used for identification (must write full organism names) ·      You should be citing references in this section in the correct format (see below for how to cite sources).   Methods and Materials: (4 points) This section should include the various overall techniques that you performed to reach your conclusion.   ·      Describe individual steps of how you preformed each procedure. I should be able to read your report and without any previous knowledge, be able to copy the technique. Try to be as concise as possible in your explanations. ·      You must use references in this section. Reference the page number of the lab manual each of these techniques can be found on. For example: A Gram stain was performed on both microbes1(p47). Never write “lab manual”, you must write out the entire name (Introduction to Microbiology Laboratory Manual) of the manual and cite it correctly.  ·      Attach your final draft of your dichotomous key to this section and use it to describe your experimental plan (3 points). This key must have a proper figure heading (see below) and must be discussed in this section. ·      DO NOT include any results in this section or your interpretation of the results.   Results: You must visually describe the appearance of all results. All results must be recorded in table format. You may choose to do multiple tables or a single table, but the information must be recorded in a table. This section must include:  ·      5 colony characteristics (1 point). ·      Appearance of each organism under the microscope after the Gram stain, including color and cell morphology (1 points). ·      Outcomes (visual appearance) of each biochemical test (3 points).  ·      DO NOT interpret any of the results, leave that for the discussion. ·      Your table(s) must have correct headings (see below). ·      Do not cut tables off between pages.    Discussion: Discuss what knowledge was gained from your experiments and what the results from each technique mean about your organism.  ·      Explain isolation and pure culturing. ·      Explain what the gram stain results mean about your organism. Why are Gram positive purple and Gram negatives pink? Be sure to talk about the cellular envelope differences here. (3 points). ·      Discuss which organisms were you able to eliminate after each round of testing (1 point).  ·      Explain what the results of each biochemical test mean about the metabolism of the organisms (4 points). What sort of ability does the organism have based on your test result? Do they utilize any enzymes to achieve this ability? Be sure to include what end product is made in each one of the tests and what that end product tell us about the organism.  ·      DO NOT use quotes, this must be in your own words.  ·      The final statement in your discussion should be which 2 organisms you believe you were given.     References: You must provide a complete citation of the references that are used in the paper. All citations need to be in AMA format. (3 points).    ·      You need to cite the lab manual and any additional resources you use for the project.  ·      AMA format guidelines can be found in Blackboard under the Ex. 18 folder.      How to label figures and tables:  o   Figure headings always go below the figure and table headings always go above the table.  o   Label your figure and table with a number going in order of appearance in the paper. For example: If using 2 tables and then a figure, they would be labeled Table 1, Table 2 and Figure 1. Not Table 1, Table 2 and Figure 3.  o   Each table and figure must have a description