Requirements for Written Reports -- Your written report should be double-spaced
with normal margins, 10-15 pages in length (in most cases), and about twice the length
of weekly lab write-ups turned in earlier in the semester. Longer report length can be
accounted for by longer introductions to introduce the hypothesis you are testing and
why it is important, detailed discussion of methods and results (including tables,
graphs, etc.), and thorough interpretation of results and further speculations or ideas
that the results lead to, etc. Include a Title Page with your name and a descriptive title
for your paper. Include an INTRODUCTION outlining the hypothesis or problem to
investigated, why it is important to ecology, and what the null and alternative
hypotheses are that you intend to test; METHODS outlining exactly how you did the
project (in enough detail so that someone else could read your methods and repeat the
experiment) and how you summarized/analyzed the data; RESULTS outlining data
collected (also include tables or graphs that may help to visually summarize data);
make certain you provide your statistical results here; DISCUSSION AND
CONCLUSION outlining whether you could reject your null hypothesis or not, to what
degree your data answers the questions posed, what significance your results have for
our understanding of natural history, what problems you encountered and how the
project could be improved, what could be done in the future, etc. The LITERATURE
CITED section should include at least THREE references, one of which can be the text
used in lecture, if appropriate. References such as newspapers, non peer-reviewed
magazine articles, and websites will not qualify for the three minimum references
Sample Solution