Formal Biology Lab Report

Instructions for Lab 9  Enzymes Formal  Report
Break it down section by section so you don’t get overwhelmed.  A lot of it you’ve already written about
once already.  You need time to complete this successfully.  Don’t wait until the night before.
•   Spacing:   Double (tables should be single spaced)
•   Font: Palatino, 11 point
•   BE FORMAL and TECHNICAL.  This is a scientific report.  Be clear and to the point.
•   No personal pronouns (except in the analysis and conclusion) or feeling words.
•   NO ABBREVIATIONS (except units, like ml for milliliters, also plural is still ml or mL not  mls )
•   Past tense is appropriate for most of the report; however, write the Methods section in the
imperative mood.  This means to write it like a how- to paper/instructions.  For example, “Add  3
ml (3 cm) Benedict’s reagent.  Invert test tube to mix.”
•   Edit (or at least read through) so you find obvious spelling errors, tense disagreement, lack of
punctuation and so on.  Don’t capitalize things that shouldn’t be capitalized.
•   If you have a title o f a section at the bottom of the page, move it to the top of the next page where
that section is located.
•   Significant is a statistics word.  So unless you have statistical analysis with standard deviations
and confidence intervals, you shouldn’t use the word significant.
•   Title all your figures (Graphs) Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.; diagrams (drawings/sketches/pictures)
Diagram 1, Diagram 2, etc.; and tables (grid- like charts) Table 1, Table 2, etc.  The title goes above.
You should refer to the figures, diagrams, and tables by name in the report.  Definitely in the
analysis and possibly the methods.

Here are the parts that need to be in your formal lab report.  Write  the proper headings
Review comments from your mini pre- lab 9  and adjust your report accordingly.

TITLE ( make this specific for your group, see note below)
For example: T he effects of the inhibitor phenylthiourea on catecholase activity This is not one that you
should use because we didn’t test inhibitors.  Make your own .    Temperature and pH  experiments   are
about catecholase activity.   Catecholase and catechol concentration experiments  are about the rate of
the reaction catalyzed by catecholase.

ABSTRACT  (one paragraph)
•   Purpose   of the lab  (the question being investigated by your experiment)
•   Summary of the lab (what will be done and how, hit the key points)
•   How data will be measured
•   How the results are evaluated/determined
•   Add additional information if you feel it’s appropriate for a complete summary.
BACKGROUND   ( In   t extbook and lab manual)
C onnect these ideas together  in paragraphs, no bullet points.  If you want to integrate the information
about enzymes generally and the information about the specific enzyme used in the lab together, that
would be fine.   Just make it clear you’ve addressed all the required topics.   You can have subsection
headings if you like.
•   Describe an enzyme.
o   Parts of an enzyme
o   How it works generally  (incl. an explanation of activation energy, reactants, transition state,
and products)
o   The four specific mechanisms by  which it can work  ( Chapter 6)
•   Describe a substrate and induced fit
•   How does an enzyme affect the overall change in free energy ( ? G)? (See figures textbook)
•   The instructions for how to build enzymes are   encoded   in the nucleotide sequence of genes in the
DNA.  Although the instructions are the same in every body cell, different genes can be turned off
and on, which gives rise to different cell types, such as a liver cell and a heart cell.  The reactions that
occur in a cell determine,  to a large degree, how that cell is able to function.   Knowing what you do
about enzyme specificity   and  using  the information given above, why is a liver cell so different  than  a
heart cell?  Make sure you explain the whole reason.
•   What are the two types of inhibitors and how do they function?
•   What enzyme is being tested in this lab?  Discuss that enzyme. What’s the substrate? What reaction
does it catalyze? What type of reaction is that? What are the reactants and products?  What’s
oxidized?  Why?  What ’s reduced?  Why ?  Describe what’s produced. What real life process
demonstrates  the results of this reaction?
•   Discuss the spectrometer (Red  Tide) and how it works.  What is the absorbance directly
detecting/measuring?   What does the solution look like  at   a higher   absorbance compared to a lower
absorbance?   What does the absorbance   correlate with molecularly ?   How does this molecular
information relate to the functionality of catecholase (temperature/pH groups)  or to the rate of the
reaction being catalyzed by catecholase (concentration  groups)? [You may need to include additional
explanations to fully describe how the data collected by the Red Tide ultimately reveals information
about catecholase.]
Hypothesis
Transfer from your  pre- lab taking any comments  into account .  If you didn’t  complete  the  pre- lab , see the
instructions/document posted on  D2L   for your group to see what you should write.

MATERIALS  (list with commas)
Transfer from your  pre- lab .  If you didn’t do the  pre- lab , you should make a list of all the materials used
for your part of the lab.    You should ask  another group member   and think about how you actually
executed the experiment  to double – check you have everything.
METHODS
Procedure
Write about what you actually did in the experiment.  I should be able to do the experiment from reading
your methods.  This means  you might need to include the T ables that tell what to add to each test tube .
Name it  Table A .    See the  instructions/document posted on  D2L   for your group to see what you should
add or change.  Of course, you have actually done the experiment now, so you should know what you
did.    Don’t forget to add the step about pipetting the solution from the test tube into the cuvette. And we
didn’t use  p arafilm.    If you didn’t do everything for the group, ask a fellow member to explain the
procedure they performed.
•   TEMPERATURE GROUP  (group 1),  use the temperatures that your solutions were actually at
when you performed the experiment.  Usually they’re not exactly 10°C, 24°C, and 50°C.  By
the way, you can get the Celsius  sym bol by going to Insert – Symbols.
Independent variable
Dependent variable(s)
Control(s)
•   Discuss the B test tubes (blanks). Are they positive or negative controls?  Why?  Why do they
make good controls? What are they used for?  If you have more than one B, discuss why.
•   Sometimes the blanks are not the only control.  Identify other controls if applicable.  Are the
positive or negative controls?  Why?  Why are they good controls?  What are they used for?
Experimental  groups
2 possible sources of error

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