factor that could play an important role in determining the rate of disappearance: the

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1 Monster, Muppet 1 Use standard letter size paper. Margins 1 inch all around. Use 12- point, legible font such as New Times Roman. Double- space Cookie Monster Ernie Muppet Your name, instructor s name, course name, date are double- spaced and left justified. The Header should have your last name and page numbers and should be right justified. Ms. Ferrara Biology 31 October 2014 Title: Describe contents clearly and precisely. Do not include phrases such as Studies on, or Investigation of Abstract: What is report about but in miniature. State main objectives. Describe methods. Summarize most important results. State major conclusions. The Effect of Cookie Type on Rate of Disappearance Abstract: Cookies disappear from cookie jars at different rates. This paper tests one factor that could play an important role in determining the rate of disappearance: the type of cookie in the jar. The type of cookies present in a jar was varied, and their disappearance measured under standard conditions. We found that chocolate chip cookies had the highest rate of disappearance, followed by peanut butter cookies and then oatmeal-raisin. We conclude that the type of cookie has a significant effect on Introduction: What is the problem? Describe the problem investigated. Why is it important? Review and summarize relevant research to provide context. This is where you need in- text citations. What solution? rate of disappearance and hypothesize that cookie preferences among local populations of Homo sapiens might be the determining factor. Introduction: In recent years, a number of researchers have reported the rapid, spontaneous disappearance of cookies that had been stored in jars (Keebler, Abisco and Baker 105), especially when the jars were placed in publically accessible locations (Monster 1114). Furthermore, the rate of cookie disappearance is not constant from one experiment to the next (Oreo and Milk 65), suggesting that some unknown factor can affect the rate of disappearance. We conducted the experiment reported here to

2 Monster, Muppet 2 determine whether the type of cookie placed in the jar would affect the rate of disappearance. Because some types of cookie are known to be yummier than others (House 102), we hypothesized that some types of cookie would consistently disappear faster than others. Methods: Methods: How did you study the problem? What did you use? How did you proceed? What to avoid? Don t mix results with procedures. For each trial, one jar containing approximately two dozen chocolate-chip cookies and one jar containing approximately two dozen coconut macaroons were placed on a table in a hallway of the North Central College Science Center with significant foot traffic. Jars were always set out at 8:00 a.m., and the number of cookies remaining was counted every hour for 10 hours. The experiment was repeated three times. Results: This is where you explain your actual findings. Use words. List figures, photos and graphs in separate section. Imagine the reader may read the text but ignore the figures. Start with a recap of your introduction, then tell the story of your experiment. Direct the reader to Figures and Graphs. Generally written in the past tense. You are not only reporting data but analyzing it. Results: In order to determine whether cookie type influences the rate of cookie disappearance from jars in public locations, we compared the rate of disappearance of chocolate-chip cookies with that of coconut macaroons. When the two types of cookie were placed side-by-side and the number remaining was determined over a 10-hour period, we observed that the coconut macaroons 24 disappeared more slowly. Very similar results were obtained in each of three trials. Average data for the three trials, reported as percentage of cookies remaining are shown in Figure 1. We then determined the rate of disappearance for each trial of each kind of cookie using best-fit linear trendlines. The average rates are shown in Table 1. Note that for the chocolate-chip cookies, we observed that the rate of disappearance slowed after about seven hours in each trial; therefore, we calculated rate using only the data for

3 Monster, Muppet 3 the first seven hours in order to measure a linear rate of disappearance. We used Student s t-test to compare the rates and found that the rate of disappearance of the chocolate-chip cookies was significantly higher than the rate for the coconut macaroons (p < 0.001). Figures and Tables: Figures refer to graphs, drawings, photographs. A Table is a table of numerical data. A figure should have a caption. A table should have a title but no caption. Figure 1. Disappearance of chocolate chip cookies and coconut macaroons over a 10- hour period. Data are averages of three trials; error bars represent 95% confidence limits. Only the linear portions of the curves were considered in plotting best-fit lines

4 Monster, Muppet 4 Table 1. Rates of cookie disappearance COOKIE TYPE RATE OF DISAPPEARANCE* Chocolate Chip 10.5 ± 0.8 % Coconut Macaroon 3.4 ± 0.2% *Average of three trials; reported as percentage of cooks disappearing per hour ± one standard deviation. Discussion: What do your observations mean? What conclusions can you draw? How do your results fit into a broader context? Don t overgeneralize. Don t ignore deviations in data. Discussion: This experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that cookie disappearance rates would be affected by the type of cookie used. Specifically, we compared the rate of disappearance of chocolate chip cookies to that of coconut macaroons. We found that chocolate chip cookies disappeared nearly three times faster, a statistically significant difference that supports our hypothesis. This difference in disappearance rates was consistent across three trials, and the relatively small standard deviations in the data. We also observed a consistent slowdown in disappearance of the chocolate-chip cookies after seven hours. This phenomenon could be due to reduced foot traffic later in the day or could be due to the limited number of cookies remaining in the jar at this point. Increasing the duration of the experiment so that the number of macaroons remaining also approaches zero could provide further information. Previous research (House 98) showed that chocolate chip cookies are among the yummiest available, scoring on average 10 Yums (Ym) higher than coconut macaroons. Taken together with the data reported here, this suggests that their high rate of disappearance may be due to higher appeal to passing Homo sapiens. Future experiments will test this hypothesis.

5 Monster, Muppet 5 Works Cited should be on a separate page. Double- spaced. List sources in alphabetical order by author s last name. Use hanging indent format. Works Cited House, Toll Quantitative measurement of taste value of various cookie types. Journal of Baking 45: (1999). Print. Keebler, Elf, N. Abisco, and Ami Baker. Spontaneous Disappearance of Cookies from Jars. Journal of Cookie Science 3: (2002). Print. Monster, Cookie Cookie Disappearance Varies with Location. Baking Science 23: (2006). Print. Oreo, Cookie, and Whole Milk Unexpected Variation in Cookiedisappearance Experiments. Journal of Irregular Recipes 7 Oct. 1996: 65+. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 23 May Here in Nutley High School MLA is the standard format for research papers. This sample follows MLA. In college, lab reports are often written using the APA format rather than MLA. Always consult with your teacher about formats. They may have specific preferences. The Purdue University Online Writing Lab is a terrific resource: If you have a question, you can usually find the answer there.