Please note that the report is required to be double-spaced with 2.54 cm (1 in) margins and 12 pt. Times New Roman font. If it is not, you will be notified and the report will be considered late until fixed.

Please note that the report is required to be double-spaced with 2.54 cm (1 in) margins and 12 pt.
Times New Roman font. If it is not, you will be notified and the report will be considered late until
fixed.
While writing the final report, you are expected to address all issues that led to grade deductions in
the draft. If you ignore an issue, you will be penalized 2 points (in addition to the grade deduction). If you are unsure how to address an issue, ask your instructor in a timely manner.
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Title Page (2 pts)
_____ 1 Title is descriptive and concise (and different than the lab handout title)
_____ 1 Author’s affiliation is correct
Materials and Methods (5 pts)
_____ 1 Written in paragraph form (not listed like steps in a recipe)
_____ 1 Written in past tense
_____ 2 Contains all relevant information to enable reader to repeat the experiment; this includes analysis and statistical methods
_____ 1 Avoids excessive details on the methods. This section should not exceed 1.5 pages.
Results (16 pts)
_____ 2 Graphs are complete and correct (i.e., data correctly represented, contains correct axis
labels, axis have appropriate scale, graph is readable, format is appropriate for scientific
publication)
_____ 1 Figures are numbered in the order in which they are discussed in the text
_____ 1 Figure captions are below the figure and are in the proper format
_____ 2 Figure captions adequately describe the data being presented
_____ 3 The results are correctly summarized (not too much detail)
_____ 2 No irrelevant results are reported (results relate to the hypothesis)
_____ 2 Shannon-Weiner index values are correct
_____ 1 Statements that imply statistical analysis are only made when statistical analysis has
been conducted (e.g., references to “significance,” “correlation,” etc.)
_____ 1 Written in past tense.
_____ 1 No explanation is given for the results (although basic conclusions may be stated).
Discussion (12 pts)
Paragraph 1:
_____ 1 The hypothesis being tested is restated (assuming that it would have been initially stated in the Introduction) and correct
_____ 1 Results are briefly and correctly restated
_____ 2 The conclusions/interpretations are stated and justified given the data/results
Paragraph 2:
_____ 3 The broader significance of the results is explained (do not quote the lab handout!)
_____ 3 Appropriate reference is made to two literature sources
Paragraph 3:
_____ 2 Write a concluding paragraph in which you discuss what other types of data you might
like to collect in the future to better understand observed patterns. Do not merely say
that you would collect more of the same exact data.
Literature Cited (6 pts)
_____ 2 Both references are cited
_____ 2 Reference format is correct and complete, following the conventions in the journal
Ecology (see next page)
_____ 2 All references were cited in the text; all citations in the text have been included in the
Literature Cited section
Convention (1 pts)
_____ 0.5 Provide the scientific names of all organisms in text of article when first mentioned.
Common names may be used when convenient after stating the scientific names
_____ 0.5 Units of measure must conform to the International System of Units (SI), i.e., metric
Writing (13 pts)
_____ 2 Citation format in the text is correct (see below)
_____ 2 Citations are paraphrased. Quotation marks are not used
_____ 2 Writing is efficient, formal, and appropriate for scientific papers
_____ 2 Paper is organized correctly; information put into appropriate section
_____ 5 Paper is proofread: free of spelling, grammatical, and typographical error