A properly prepared lab proposal clearly states the objective(s) of your research (poses the question), clearly describes your experimental design (the precise steps you will follow), anticipates specific kinds and quantities of materials needed to perform your experiment, and indicates expected outcomes based upon your background reading and sound biological judgement, etc. By thinking through your experimental procedure and writing a good proposal, the actual implementation phase will be enjoyable and orderly. However, remember that the steps you take during the actual experiment are recorded in your log because they may not be exactly like the steps suggested in your proposal. Proposed and actual procedures may be two different things. The latter are the most important because they determine whether or not you will be able to repeat the experiment exactly as you performed it the first time. At no time will you enter actual experimental data on proposal forms. Use the logs for this (see instructions elsewhere about this). An alternative hypothesis will be included because your results may not be as predicted. The question to ask is: What should the experimental design be for a follow-up experiment if the results of the first one are negative?
Lab day and time: ______________ Group number _________________
Group members: ____________________________________________
Question:
Statement of Purpose or Hypothesis:
Materials Needed:
Methods: Indicate step-by-step specifically what you are going to do; make sure to explicitly identify the variables by name.
Table Design: To be entered into your individual lab notebook to receive data generated by your experiment.
Data Analysis: Describe any special data analysis that will be necessary to prepare the data for the lab report.
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Last Modified: Jan. 10, 1996
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