Microbiology Project

Part 1: Unknown Identification

The first paragraph of your project paper will communicate the identity of the 5 unknowns you solved in the activity above. You will need your 5 unknowns you identified on the Virtual Unknowns page, the culture #, the genus and species of the identified unknown, the tests you ran, and the reason why you chose each test for each unknown. You can do this in a chart or in paragraph format. For example, you could write this. Culture #1 was identified as Proteus vulgaris. It is a gram negative rod and these are the tests that identified it (and the results of those tests): gram morphology (g-rod), oxidase (negative), lactase (positive), catalase (negative), and EMB (negative). These tests were chosen as directed by my flow chart. You will need to do that for all 5 unknowns. Or you can put that information in a chart in the appendix. This will not count as part of the four pages required on Part 2.

Part 2: Research on a chosen unknown

For this part of your paper, you will choose one of the 5 unknowns from Part 1 and do a short research paper on it. You will need to include the following information:

This report should include every diagnostic test for that particular bacterium, symptoms of the illness it can cause if there are any, treatments, and whatever other information you feel is relative or important. Pictures are optional and do not count as part of the text and should be in the appendix. This paper should be written as a research paper with a works cited page and citations throughout the paper whenever they are used in MLA format. If you have not ever used this, please see this site and use these guidelines:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ (Links to an external site.)

Part 2 should be at least 4 pages long and should be double-spaced. 12 font and 1 inch margins should be used. The four pages do not include the Works Cited, the five unknowns, the appendix, nor Part 1.

**Special things to pay close attention to: **

a. The genus and species of your bacteria should be written either Genus species or Genus species. The underline is not connected between the genus and species name. If it is not written correctly, you will lose points each time it is written incorrectly. For example, the correct way to write “Staphylococcus aureus” would be either Staphylococcus aureus or Staphylococcus aureus.

b. Grammar and spelling: Get someone else to proofread your paper prior to submission. Most people make mistakes here that cost them several letter grades. Most instructors will not grade papers with more than 2 grammatical/spelling errors and it will cost you dearly if you do not correct these prior to submission. You are welcome to submit your paper to NetTutor prior to submission so that they can help you with this!

c. Use valid sources. Wikipedia and the like are not valid sources for any type of paper. If you do not know what sources are valid, see this link: http://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page346376