Internet and Lab Report Assignment

Due: 15 September
Online Literature Resources
The goal of this exercise is to familiarize yourself with online resources that will most likely be
used to write your weekly lab reports. Knowing what information is available at different sites
and how to use them will be useful for this course and beyond. There are a wide variety of
databases available, many of which are tailored to specific subjects. For this course, you will
most likely use these databases, which are accessible from the library homepage (click on the
“Find a Database”):
1.) Web of Science
2.) NCBI (contains PubMed and PubMed Central)
Please answer the following questions:
1.) Provide a brief description of Web of Science, NCBI, PubMed, and PubMed Central.
Include information such as the differences between each site, what subjects the sites are
tailored to, whether full text articles are available, what years Web of Science and
PubMed covers, and what the acronym “NCBI” stands for. Note: when searching for
PubMed and PubMed Central from the library website, search for “PubMed,” not
“NCBI.” The “PubMed” link will take you to the NCBI homepage. PubMed Central
(aka PMC) can be found from the “PubMed” link . The NCBI homepage is also
accessible from the internet: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
2.) From the NCBI homepage, click on the “Books” link near the top of the page embedded
in the black bar. How many books are available online? Is the entire book available or
just sections? This can be a valuable resource for writing lab reports or familiarizing
yourself with physiological concepts, especially if you do not own an animal physiology
text book.
3.) From the NCBI homepage, click on the “Journals” link near the top of the page
embedded in the black bar. Select the “Search by topic, journal title or abbreviation,
ISSN, or browse by subject terms” link. How many subjects are available?
Many databases have free articles available, some of which are only free if you are connected
through the USU library. Of these databases, I find Web of Science most useful, since my
research interests focus on non-human animals. However, if you are more interested in medical
issues then PubMed and PubMed Central might be more useful.
Lab Report Critique
You will be writing lab reports for most of the labs in this course, and these will account for the
bulk of your grade. Also, as scientists, writing (= publications) is how ideas and findings are
communicated. If you discover the meaning of life but are unable to communicate this finding,
then your idea has no meaning to the scientific community. Therefore, it is important for you to
understand how to write a lab report and to understand what work we expect from you in this
course.
We have provided two lab reports for you to critique. One is a poorly-written lab and the other is
a well-written lab. We have also included a Lab Report Evaluation form for each lab. We would
like you to critique both labs. Please include comments and corrections on the lab reports as

though you were editing the paper. These comments/corrections can be grammatical (i.e.
incomplete sentences), conceptual (i.e. poor development of content in the intro), and/or
structural (i.e. disorganized presentation of the results). Be thorough with your comments, but
not excessive. We suggest using the “Lab Report Guidelines” handout as a guide to help you
write the critiques. When you have finished reading and commenting on both lab reports,
complete a Lab Report Evaluation form for each report. Include at least 5 comments that show
your understanding of what makes for poorly- and well-written lab reports. In other words, your
comments should justify why you gave the report a particular grade. Since writing can be
subjective, there is no correct “answer” for your critique; however, you will be graded on your
effort so please do a thorough job.