Antibiotics: Discovery and Function Spring 2014 Materials and Methods: solutions, acids, bases, and buffers Background:

A critical aspect of your development as a scientist is learning to effectively communicate the results of your research in publishable written manuscripts. For most of you, this will require learning a new style of writing than you have been taught previously. Research manuscripts are generally divided into several sections to help organize the content, and you will learn to write each of these sections through a series of assignments this semester. For this first assignment, you will learn how to write a Materials and Methods section. The goal of this section is to write a thorough description of what you did with an appropriate level of detail such that another competent scientist can easily repeat your experiment and confirm your results. In the biological sciences, Materials and Methods sections typically include information about organisms/strains used, growth/culturing techniques, methods of DNA manipulation, information on data deposited in online databases, reagents and equipment used, and the manufacturers from which materials were obtained. Additionally, a thorough description of each experiment is presented, usually under a descriptive subheading. Finally, you should describe any kind of statistical analysis that was performed on the data you collected. Materials and Methods assignment: You will write a Materials and Methods section describing your work in the lab for the past two weeks (Solutions, Acids, Bases, and buffers labs; weeks 2 and 3). Address how you made your phosphate buffer solution and serial dilutions from week 2 as well as what was done for the titration experiments you performed in week 3. Each experiment should have its own subsection heading, though how you define each experiment and organize the subsections is up to you. You should write descriptions of what was done in passive voice rather than instructing/ordering the reader to do something. Within your descriptions of what was done, you should include information on the materials/reagents you used and the manufacturers from which these materials were obtained. This information should be integrated into the methods descriptions; do not simply list materials separately. Be sure to identify the manufacturers for reagents/materials you used in lab this week. Brief Results discussion: While this assignment is not about learning how to write a results section or making publication-quality figures, you should still state your results from the past two weeks in a separate section. Use the rubric below to ensure you have included everything. Week 2 State the pH values you measured for your phosphate buffer. Use the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation to calculate the pH you would expect. State the pH values you measured for your HCl serial dilutions and what you expected. Discuss any possible sources of error. Week 3 Show the four well-labeled graphs you generated to display your titration results. Calculate the concentration of acetic acid from your first titration. State the pKa values of acetic acid and sodium carbonate you calculated form your data. Look up the pKa values for acetic acid and sodium carbonate and compare to your results. Discuss any possible sources of error. This assignment is due on Canvas by 6pm on 2/10/13. It will be returned to you with a grade and extensive written feedback within one week, and you will have the opportunity to revise it for a better grade. There is no hard page limit, though it should not require more than 5 pages. Try as brief/efficient with your writing as possible.