Outline of final paper

Outline of the Final Lab Report

Carefully review the Grading Rubric that will be used to evaluate your assignment before you begin.

You are required to develop an outline for your Final Lab Report, which covers all three experiments for “Lab 2: Water Quality and Contamination.” To begin, carefully review the instructions for your Final Lab Report assignment located within Week Five. Next, download the Outline of the Final Lab Report Template and utilize this form to ensure proper formatting and inclusion of all required material. Note that the outline should be written in paragraph form and should not simply be a list of bullet points. Using the template will ensure proper formatting. You must use at least four scholarly sources and your lab manual to support your points. The outline must be three to five pages in length (excluding title and reference pages) and formatted according to APA style. For information regarding APA samples and tutorials, visit the Ashford Writing Center, located within the Learning Resources tab on the left navigation toolbar.

The Outline of the Final Lab Report must contain the following seven sections in this order:

1. Title Page – This page must include the title of your report, your name, course name, instructor, and date submitted.
2. Introduction – This section should outline why the experiment was conducted. At a minimum, it should contain three paragraphs. One paragraph must cover background information of similar studies that have already been done in the area. This is accomplished by citing existing literature from similar experiments and explaining their results. A second paragraph should provide an objective or a reason why the experiment is being done. Why do we want to know the answer to the question we are asking? A third paragraph should provide a hypothesis for each of the three experiments conducted.
3. Materials and Methods – This section should provide a detailed description of the materials used in your experiment and how they were used. A step-by-step rundown of your experiment is necessary; however, it should be done in paragraph form, not in a list format. The description should be exact enough to allow for someone reading the report to replicate the experiment, but it should be in your own words and not simply copied and pasted from the lab manual.
4. Results – This section should include the data and observations from the experiment. All tables and graphs should be present in this section. Additionally, there should be at least one paragraph explaining the data in paragraph form. There should be no personal opinions or discussion beyond the results of your experiments located within this section.
5. Discussion – This section should interpret or explain the meaning of your data and provide conclusions. At least three paragraphs should be outlined here. First, a paragraph should be present that addresses whether the hypotheses were confirmed or denied and how you know this. Second, you are to discuss the meaning of your findings in this area utilizing scholarly sources to put the paper into context. For example, how do your results compare with the findings of similar studies? Also, you should discuss any future questions arising from your results and how you might test them. Finally, you should discuss if there are any outside factors (i.e., temperature, contaminants, time of day) that affected your results. If so, how could you control for these in the future?
6. Conclusions – This section should provide a brief summary of your work.
7. References – Provide a list of at least four scholarly sources and your lab manual that will be used in the Final Lab Report. Format your references according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center

8. Title

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   Name

   SCI 207: Dependence of man on the environment

   Instructor

   Date

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

   *This template will provide you with the details necessary to begin a quality Final Lab Report. Utilize this template to complete the Week 3 Outline of the Final Lab Report and ensure that you are providing all of the necessary information and proper format for the assignment.  Before you begin, please note the following important information:

    

   1. Carefully review the Final Lab Report instructions before you begin this assignment

   2. The Final Lab Report should cover all 3 experiments from your Week Two Lab

   3. As you plan your final paper, think about how you can combine these laboratories to tell a fact-based story about water quality. For example, consider how your experiments can be linked to issues at water treatment plants or the amount of bottled water people purchase.

   4. For further help see the Sample Final Lab Report for an example of a final product on a different topic.

   5. You may simply replace the text following the bold terms with the appropriate outline information to complete this assignment.  Make sure to pay close attention to the information called for and provide all necessary material.

    

    

   Title

    

   Introduction

    

   Body Paragraph #1 – Background:  The outline of the introduction should describe the background of water quality and related issues using cited examples.  You should include scholarly sources in this section to help explain why water quality research is important to society.  When outlining this section, make sure to at least list relevant resources in APA format that will be used in the final paper to develop the background for your experiment.

    

   Body Paragraph # 2 – Objective: The outline of the introduction should also contain the objective for your study.  This objective is the reason why the experiment is being done. Your outline should provide an objective that describes why we want to know the answer to the questions we are asking.

    

   Body Paragraph # 3 – Hypotheses: Finally, the introduction should end with your hypotheses. The outline should include a hypothesis for each one of the three experiments. These hypotheses should be the same ones posed before you began your experiments.  You may reword them following feedback from your instructor to illustrate a proper hypothesis, however, you should not adjust them to reflect the “right” answer.  You do not lose points for an incorrect hypothesis; scientists often revise their hypotheses based on scientific evidence following an experiment.

    

    

   Materials and Methods

   Body Paragraph # 1:  The outline of the materials and methods section should provide a brief description of the specialized materials used in your experiment and how they were used. This section needs to summarize the instructions with enough detail so that an outsider who does not have a copy of the lab instructions knows what you did.  However, this does not mean writing every little step like “dip the pH test strip in the water, then shake the test strips,” these steps can be simplified to read “we used pH test strips to measure water pH”, etc.  Additionally, this section should be written in the past tense and in your own words and not copied and pasted from the lab manual.

    

   Results

    

   Tables: The outline of the results section should include all tables used in your experiment.  All values within the tables should be in numerical form and contain units.  For instance, if measuring the amount of chloride in water you should report as 2 mg/L or 0 mg/L not as two or none.

   Body Paragraph # 1: The outline of the results section should also describe important results in paragraph form, referring to the appropriate tables when mentioned.  This section should only state the results as no personal opinions should be included.  A description of what the results really mean should be saved for the discussion.  For example, you may report, 0mg/L of chlorine were found in the water, but should avoid personal opinions and interpretations such as, no chlorine was found in the water showing it is cleaner than the others samples.

    

   Discussion

    

    

   Body Paragraph #1 – Hypotheses:  The outline of the discussion section should interpret your data and provide conclusions. Start by discussing if each hypothesis was confirmed or denied and how you know this.

    

   Body Paragraph # 2 – Context: The outline of your discussion should also relate your results to the bigger water concerns and challenges. For example, based on your experiments you might discuss how various bottled water companies use different filtrations systems. Or, you could discuss the billion dollar bottled water industry. For example, do you think it is worth it to buy bottled water? Why or why not?  Your outline should at least list some of the resources that you plan to utilize in your final paper to put your results into context.

    

   Body Paragraph #3 – Variables and Future Experiments: Finally, the outline of your results section should also address any possible factors that affected your results, such as possible contamination in the experiments or any outside factors (i.e., temperature, contaminants, time of day) that affected your results?  If so, how could you control for these in the future?  You should also propose some new questions that have arisen from your results and what kind of experiment might be proposed to answer these questions.

    

    

   Conclusions

    

   Body Paragraph #1:  This section of your outline should briefly summarize the key points of your experiments.  What main message would you like people to have from this report?

    

    

   References

    

   Include at least 4 scholarly sources and your lab manual here in APA format.