Grading Rubric for Unknown Papers — Each Category (1-10) is worth 10 points.

1) On time with both digital and paper copies.

• Papers are due at the start of your laboratory on the posted due date.
• On time (5 point deduction/day for late papers)
• Note papers more than 7 days late will get a zero.
• More than 10 points can be deducted for this category.

2) Format

• Double-spaced; 12-point type
  • Papers that do not meet is criterion will be rejected and considered late until they are corrected.
• Digital copy in one file — including illustrations (5-7 point deduction)
• Scientific names underlined or in italics (2-5 point deduction)
• Give number of unknown at the start of the paper.

3) Initial Gram stain

• Gram stain from original broth mixed culture with a control.
• Described as well as illustrated.
• Saw two different kinds of bacteria, i.e., different shapes or gram reaction.
• Don’t forget to refer to your illustration by the figure number — that goes for all descriptions and figures.

4) Motility

• Did a hanging drop or wet mount from original culture, viewed at 400x for motility.
• Described in detail what you did see (even if you didn’t see motility).
• You don’t have to have an illustration of motility — sometimes it is difficult to illustrate.

5) Negative Stain

• Did a negative stain either from the original culture or from growth on the agar.
• Saw, described, and illustrated appropriate shapes and arrangements of cells.

6) Streak Plates

• Streak plates — what you did i.e, kind of agar, incubation time and temperature.
• Streak Plates — described and illustrated (photo) of what you saw.
• Apparent isolation of bacteria in one or two attempts to do so.
• BE SURE TO DESCRIBE THE COLONIES.

7) Gram stains from isolated colonies

• Describe and illustrate gram stains.  [Be sure that you did controls although you may refer to your initial gram stain if the control looked the same as it did the first time.]
• Be sure to connect the stain with the type of colony.  For example, “The gram stain from the yellow colony contained gram positive rods that were large…..”

Illustrations

• All illustrations have an accompanying label:  Figure 1. Gram stain of …..
• Include magnification in your label.
• Descriptions should be in the text NOT as part of the illustration label.  Your description should point out what you want the reader to notice in your illustration.
• Illustrations can be in the body of the paper or all at the end.
• Don’t forget that you should refer to your figures by number in the written description.

9) Got it!

• Correctly described the bacteria that you were given.
• Note that you cannot IDENTIFY them.  You have no way of doing so — don’t even bother.  Although you may say that they looked similar to the gram positive bacillus that you saw in your soil sample, for example.

10) Coherence

• What you did, saw, and described makes sense.
• Your sentences were complete with correct grammar and spelling.