Plant Physiology

Plant Physiology (Biology 327) - Dr. Stephen G. Saupe; College of St. Benedict/ St. John's University; Biology Department; Collegeville, MN 56321; (320) 363 - 2782; (320) 363 - 3202, fax; ssaupe@csbsju.edu

Abstract Preparation

An abstract is a short summary of an experiment. Abstracts typically appear at the beginning of a journal article (for example, check out any edition of Plant Physiology). Abstracts are also submitted when applying to present a paper or poster at a conference. In each case, the purpose of an abstract is to give the reader a quick way of determining what the project was about and whether to study the work further. In this course you will write an abstract to: (1) accompany your formal lab report(s); and (2) summarize the results of the majority of the experiments for which you will not prepare a formal lab report. Your abstract should:

be typed on a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper
have a title - the title should be descriptive and normally includes the variables manipulated, the response and the organism used, etc.
list the author(s) - include your vital statistics (campus address). If you worked with a lab partner, put his/her name after yours.
be relatively short - typically a single paragraph (but not usually more than a page)
include: (a) the purpose of the experiment (hypothesis), (b) how the experiment was done, (c) the results of the experiment, and (d) what the experiment means (significance). In other words, all the elements of a standard lab report should be present (introduction, methods, results, conclusion).
emphasize the most important and newsworthy items
just emphasize each of major activities/results
not include references (unless necessary)
follow the format given below:

TITLE OF EXPERIMENT

Your Name(s), Biology Department, College of St. Benedict or St. John's University, St. Joseph or Collegeville, MN ZIP

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the effect of blah, blah blah on blah, blah, blah. We hypothesized that blah, blah, blah. Our plants were grown in the greenhouse for blah days, harvested and measured for blah. We observed that blah, blah, blah. A t-test showed that these results were significant (p = 0.04). These data support our hypothesis and show that blah, blah, blah. This suggests that blah, blah, blah and could be useful to blah, blah, blah.