Always Know Your Audience
When analyzing a peer-reviewed laboratory report, there are a few details that must be paid attention to. The reader must notice whether the report has been translated, whether the report answers the who, what, why, and how questions, and whether the author planned for a professional to read the paper or a casual reader. Two of my reports were translated into English which led to some difficulties when trying to understand what I was reading. Additionally, my papers seemed as though they were written for a professional to read. They did not go into great detail about their processes and did not define and explain many of the terms they used. All three reports were written in the proper format of a laboratory report, however, the lack of explanation of terms and processes made it very difficult to understand.
The first report was titled, Effects of Different Sertoli Cell Types on the Maintenance of Adult Spermatogonial Stem Cells In Vitro. This was an experiment done on adult male mice to identify the most suited Sertoli cell types for use as feeder layers in maintaining Spermatogonial stem cells (SSC) in an unspecialized state. Sertoli cells are the cells in the testis that help with the production of sperm. A feeder layer is a group of cells that provide the necessary secretions to help other cells divide. This experiment was able to discover a new process that is helpful in the self-renewal of these types of stem cells, thus allowing for more sperm production.
The second report was titled, Enrichment of Epidermal Stem Cells of Rats by Vario Magnetic Activated Cell Sorting System. This was an experiment done on infant rats to determine a method of enrichment for epidermic stem cells (ESC) through a magnetic activated cell sorting system. ESC have not been explored a lot due to a lack of sorting technology. This experiment was set in place to find a successful and efficient way to sort these cells. The scientists discovered that FACS analysis is an efficient way to sort these cells.
The third report was titled, Lifespan of Neurons is Uncoupled from Organismal Lifespan. Scientists experimented putting neurons from one type of mouse into another type that has a longer lifespan to see if a neuron can have a longer lifespan than the organism it came from. It is known that many cells age with time and will deteriorate as their host ages. The scientists wanted to see if this was the case for all cells. They found that neurons can live the entire lifespan of their new host. This is helpful information because it can lead to further studies of cellular transplantation.
Abstract
An abstract is supposed to contain a basic overview of the report that is being read. It contains the why, what, and how of the report. Why the experiment was conducted, what problem the scientist is trying to solve, and what the results of the experiment were. This is extremely important to have at the beginning of the report because it gives the reader some insight of what is to come and will allow them to understand the report more.
The first lab report was very brief in their abstract and gave a basic explanation of what the reader can expect in the report. The authors started off with a concise explanation of SSC which I found to be extremely beneficial. They wrote, “Spermatogonial stem cells are unique testis cells that are able to proliferate, differentiate, and transmit genetic information to the next generation,” (Baazm, et al., 2017, p. 752). Additionally, the authors gave a quick synopsis of what is done in the experiment. This form of description gave a greater understanding of the report and showed a preview of what was to come. The second report clearly stated the aim and the purpose of the experiment. Similar to the first report, this gave a concise rundown of what was to be expected by the reader. The third report’s abstract was not written as clearly as the first two. It explained the basic methodology and results of the experiment, but only alluded to the aim. The authors wrote, “Whether neuronal lifespan is determined by the strain-specific lifetime or can be extended beyond this limit is unknown,” (Magrassi, et al., 2013, p.4374). After reading the entire report, I understood that the purpose of this experiment was to determine whether the rat neurons can live longer than the rats themselves when implanted into a new rat. This sentence, however, just states a fact, that this information is unknown. They do not state that this experiment was designed to figure out the answer. On the other hand, this report gave a clear explanation of their findings in the abstract.
Introduction
The introduction, also known as the background, is the part of the report where context is given for the experiment. This is the place where anything that needs to be defined is explained. Additionally, the goal of the experiment should be stated in the introduction.
All three of the labs were able to provide the appropriate information in this portion of the report. I later realized that there were many terms that should have been defined and/or explained in this portion of the paper. The first report gave sufficient background information for their experiment. For example, “[F]eeder cells are a major component for reconstituting stem cell niches in vitro,” (Baazm, et al., 2016, p. 753). This brief explanation explains why feeder cells are important to learn about and how they connect to this experiment specifically. In report two, the authors gave a background on the magnetic activated cell sorting system (MACS). They said, “It allows the rapid separation of a specific cell desired cell type with yields, providing an important tool for tissue engineering and cell transplantation studies,” (Chen, et al., 2013, p. 584). This is important information to know because this experiment is about cell sorting. This was the easiest section to understand in report three. They gave background information, clearly stated the aim of the experiment, and gave a brief explanation of their methodology.
Method/Materials
This is the section of the report where all of the experimental processes are explained in detail. The authors must discuss everything they did in the experiment, including what materials they used and how they collected their data. All three of the reports split their method section into subsections based on the different parts of the experiment. This was very helpful because it broke down the experiment and allowed for a greater understanding of each part. However, in all three reports there were a large number of terms that were mentioned that had not been explained which made the content complex.
Report one gave very brief explanations of each section of their methodology and basic detail of what went on in the experiment. The last subsection in this report’s method section was statistical analysis. This section was very unclear. The authors stated, “The statistical significance between the mean values was determined by one-way analysis of variance followed by a Tukey post-test with p≤ 0.05 as the statistically significant criterion,” (Baazm, et al., 2017, p. 754). These tests were not defined or discussed further, leaving no explanation of how the data was captured and analyzed. Report two’s methodology was very hard to understand. They spoke a lot about immunohistochemistry and immunocytochemistry. The authors chose not to explain or define these terms. This was a very poor choice on the authors’ part because unless the reader is extremely experienced in this field, they will not understand what had been written in this section. Report three gave a very basic explanation of their transplantation process which made it easy to read and comprehend.
Results
This section of the report is supposed to contain all data that was collected and analysis of that data. One major flaw that was in this section in all three of the reports, was that the authors only stated the data that was found, they did not discuss how it is relevant to the experiment and what it means for their findings. Report one introduced more acronyms/terms that they did not define in the report. These were “ZBTB,” “MVH,” “c-kit,” and “PCR,” (Baazm, et al., 2017, pp. 755-756). For a majority of results in report two, the authors wrote down information that was obtained, but did not explain it. For example, “The CD71 was detected not only at the basal layer, but also at the suprabasal layers of the epidermis,” (Chen, et al., 2013, p. 585). There was no further explanation of this. The connection between this and the findings of the experiment are nowhere to be found. However, for their FACS analysis, they did explain what they found. They said, “…the percentage of [sorting] cells in isolated cells was 94.59%. The results revealed that this strategy had high efficiency in ESC sorting,” (Chen, et al., 2013, p. 585). This told the reader how they found one answer to the question that they posed at the beginning of the report. Report three did not explain any of their results. Additionally, they used many terms without any definition or explanation. The results were very unclear and definitely written for a professional, not a casual reader.
Discussion
This is the section where the author is supposed to comment on their results from the experiment and explain what the results mean. All three of the reports chose to include their conclusion in this section also. Report one chose to reiterate some of the background information for this section. They did not do much discussion of their results. However, their concluding paragraph had a clear statement of what their final results were. Report two stated some of their results in the beginning of this section, but then chose to rediscuss their methodology. This was unnecessary. They also had a clear statement of their final results in their concluding paragraph. Report three gave a clear statement of findings, but also listed a lot of excess information that was not needed.
In conclusion, these three reports were not easy to understand. Aside from missing explanations of key terms in the report, there was a lot of excess information and missing information where it was needed. Overall, report one was the easiest to comprehend. The authors gave enough detail of most of the experiment.
References
Baazm, M., Mashayekhi, F., Babaie, S., Bayat, P., Beyer, C., & Zendedel, A. (2017). Effects of different Sertoli cell types on the maintenance of adult spermatogonial stem cells in vitro. In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology. Animal, 53(8), 752-758. doi:10.2307/26577616
Chen, W., Zhang, W., Shi, C., Lian, X., Yi, S., & Yang, T. (2013). Enrichment of epidermal stem cells of rats by Vario magnetic activated cell sorting system. In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology. Animal, 49(8), 583-588. Retrieved March 9, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24596456
Magrassi, L., Leto, K., & Rossi, F. (2013). Lifespan of neurons is uncoupled from organismal lifespan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(11), 4374-4379. Retrieved March 9, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42583256
Writing a science lab report. (2020, November 20). Retrieved February 28, 2021, from https://www.monash.edu/rlo/assignment-samples/science/science-writing-a-lab-report
