Name______Phally ________________________

DIABLO VALLEY COLLEGE – BIOSC 140

PREPARATORY REPORT EXERCISE (PRE) ASSIGNMENT 5: DISCUSSION

Due: Submitted On or Before Sunday September 11 at 11:59 PM with No Penalty

Assignment Overview:
This assignment consists of looking at the Discussion section for the laboratory report. You will also answer questions for
the Discussion in this exercise and those answers begin to form the framework of that section. It is strongly recommended
that you pick one particular lab exercise and stay with that for the last three PRE (JALR) assignments as those will help
direct specific content for you report.

Background:
This is the most important section of your report. This is where you explain your results in terms of expected results from
the literature research. That is, this is where you explain what happened physiologically. Try to explain any discrepancies
between what you found and what you expected based on what has been reported scientifically. Think of possible
physiological and/or technological reasons why your results differ or are the same. Describe what was demonstrated by
the experiment and the physiology that was involved. Be sure to integrate the results into your discussion to show the
physiological principles that are being demonstrated – make sure you discuss the physiology in context with your results.
As a general rule of thumb, every one of your tables and figures should be addressed in some form by your discussion.
As an example, you could state: Table 1 shows the effect of exercise on heart rate and how it increases with the level of
exercise intensity… You should include a conclusion at the end of your discussion. Keep in mind the purpose of the
laboratory exercise and your hypotheses as you write this section and make sure those are addressed in this section as
well.

Common Errors Made in the Discussion Section (Note: read carefully and try NOT to repeat these errors):
 Improper heading – the header of each section should be consistent. It should be left justified, in all caps and in
bold. There are no other things associated with the heading especially NO underlining, NOT centered and NO
small letters.
 Too few references or complete lack of references – everything you say in the discussion associated with a
scientific principle needs to be supported with a reference. This includes things like reference values, physiological
principles and the like. Generally this is done in scientific writing by putting the sources last name and date of
publication in parentheses at the end of the sentence that needs to be cited. For example, it would look like this
(Hoffmann, 2016).
 Do not ask rhetorical questions – asking rhetorical questions tends to waste some space as they are typically
answered right away. Instead, just give the idea.
 Discuss your results – the discussion section is designed to discuss the results of your experiment (hence the
name discussion). You need to bring up the associated scientific principles in context of your data, thus make sure
to present your data fairly early in this section.
 Be specific about the significance of your experiment – this is your experiment so make sure focus on that fact by
including pertinent information regarding your study. Support these ideas with other scientific studies and
references as you explain the scientific principles behind your results.
 Discuss briefly what your experiment is – make sure to mention what your experiment is, meaning a brief outline of
what you did, why you did it and what you expect. This is similar to the introduction section, but more detailed. It is
necessary to be redundant in a scientific paper.
 Be careful of grammar and spelling – since this is a college level science paper, there is an expectation that it is
well written. Common errors are misspelled words, disagreement of tenses and incomplete sentences.
 Proofread your work – make sure to finish the paper in plenty of time to proofread it. If the paper can sit just for a
few days (or at least a day), you may pick up a few things you might otherwise miss. An even better strategy is to
have another person read it.
 Include purpose and objectives with a hypothesis – make sure your discussion includes the purpose and objective
of your experiment with a hypothesis (prediction and expectation of results based on what we know).
 Be careful of capitalization – a common error is that many students want to capitalize words that are not
capitalized. Only proper names are typically capitalized, so words like amino acids and carbohydrates are NOT
capitalized. Students also seem to want to erroneously capitalize words that they will refer to with abbreviations
later. For instance a student might refer to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in their report. Notice that although DNA is
capitalized, the actual words are not.
 Say what you mean – When writing, a common bit of advice is to say what you mean and mean what you say.
Select your words carefully to ensure that they have the intended meaning.
 We never “prove” anything with an experiment in laboratory – we might show a concept or demonstrate a principle,
but we can never “prove” anything with one laboratory experiment, so be careful of your wording.
  Spell out abbreviations for the first time in each section – you should spell out the abbreviations (even the common
ones such as DNA) the first time you use it in a section. Then you may use the abbreviation only.
 Make sure it is appropriate length – while the proper length depends on writing styles, subject matter and level of
detail, most good discussion sections in this course would typically merit a good grade would need to be at least
three pages in length (and some significantly longer) with no limit on how long they need to be.

Assignment:
The following questions are elements that you should include in the discussion. This assignment is designed for you to
take a critical look at these questions and elements prior to writing your laboratory report. Then, as you write your
discussion, make sure to use this paper for reference.

Questions:
What is the laboratory you selected?

  8.4c The role of carbon dioxide in the regulation of ventilation

What are the important results you should discuss in this section? Have you noted every figure and table?

  The important results is the decrease in breaths after hyperventilation. The figure I used is a bar graph to show the
decrease in breaths. This will give the reader an easy visual of my experiment.

What is the significance of the experiment?

The significance of my experiment shows us how CO2 level elevation can effect the blood and cause an increase in the
ph level which can then cause the blood to become acidic.

What are the key physiological points you want to make based on the significance?

The first key point is how the changes of CO2 levels effects the pH level in the blood.

Regulating the CO2 levels and blood pH is important. CO2 plays various roles in the human body including regulation of
blood pH, respiratory drive, and affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen (O2). Fluctuations in CO2 levels are highly regulated
and can cause disturbances in the human body if normal levels are not maintained.
Did your results match the expected results based on previous scientific research? Where there any discrepancies
between the measured data and what was expected? If so can you explain it?

My results were similar to previous studies. The body wants to regulate the pH level and decrease the CO2 levels in the
body

What was the purpose and hypothesis from the introduction? Have you integrated those into the results?

The purpose and hypothesis from the introduction is to show why we are performing the experiment and what exactly we
think will happen during the written experiment. Yes those will be integrated into the results to show if the hypothesis is
correct.
What is the conclusion?
THe conclusion is prehyperventilation breaths count will be higher than your post hyperventilation breath because the pH
level in the blood increases from the CO2 from hyperventilation. The post hyperventilation breath therefore level out the
CO2 level and lower the pH in the blood.

Are there any directions for future research (things that could be further tested to better answer the hypothesis)?

To further research my experiment is to test the analyze pH levels in the blood before and after ventilations to see the
associated numbers for comparison.

Submission Checklist:
Make sure your submission includes all of the following completed information for this PRE (JALR).
1. Answer questions for Discussion from selected Fox laboratory (Fox 1.3A, 1.3B, 8.4A, 8.4B, 8.4C, 2.1A, 2.1B or
2.1C)