Staphylococcus aureus research paper guidelines UX

(36 Points)

Your research paper is due Friday, December 1st by 11:59 PM. You are welcome to turn it in early. Late papers will result in a loss of 5 points per day. The reports will be submitted through Turnitin on Brightspace.
Submit it in the ‘Assessments: Assignments’ menu on our class homepage; it is titled “
S. aureus lab report”.

Be wary of plagiarism.
I will not grade a report that has a similarity score greater than 30%. A plagiarized report will result in a zero!

General guidelines (6 points)

Include a title page with a microscopy image (electron or light microscope) of
S. aureus. Use 12-point Arial or Times New Roman font and
double space the text (I leave comments in the spacing of your paper). Between 4-6 pages (more is fine), not including references or the title page. Correct spelling, grammar, margins, and use of italics are necessary. A scientific research paper
does not include quotes “”, even if cited. Make sure you paraphrase the information. Organize your lab report using the following headings:

Introduction (6 pts)

Provide background information about
Staphylococcus aureus. What is its history? What are some of its physical characteristics? What are some statistics on
S. aureus human colonization? What are parts of the human body that
S. aureus can colonize? Provide
specific information on some of the acute and chronic diseases that a Staph infection is associated with. Some strains of
S. aureus have been shown to be resistant to antibiotics. What is the difference between MRSA and MSSA? Why are Staph infections a concern in the medical community? Tie in the information you’ve provided into the experiment that follows.

Materials and methods (6 pts):

Describe how the mannitol salt agar (MSA) test is performed and how it can be used to determine
S. aureus carriage. Note the environments students tested. Include the MSA ingredients and the
purpose of those ingredients. Include incubation time and temperature.

Results (6 pts):

Include a picture of your two MSA plate results. Are you positive or negative for
S. aureus colonization? Where did you test positive? What about
Staphylococcus epidermidis? How do you know what grew on your plate?

Be sure to include the class data on
nose,
ears,
tonsils, and
overall
S. aureus carriage. Talk about the class data (both # of students and percentages) and provide a good visual of it. Use bar graphs or pie charts to visualize the results. The class data will be available to you on Brightspace.

Discussion (6 pts)
:

Tie in your individual results with the overall class results. How does the class percentage on Staph carriage compare to the overall population? Do you have ear, nose, throat, or skin symptoms that may be associated with
Staphylococcus aureus? Do you think someone you know is colonized by
S. aureus? Why do you think this? Discuss the contagiousness of
S. aureus and how one can be colonized by the bacteria. What are some different types of antibiotics and antiseptics, both prescription and over the counter, that can be used to treat Staph infections or that are used to remove Staph from the body? Close your discussion by summarizing your overall report.

References (6 pts):

References needs to be on its own separate page. Images do not need to be referenced in your references page.
Use at least 4 different references. Make sure the sources are reputable (no Wikis or blogs). Write the references in the correct format, using the American Psychological Association (APA) style and in
alphabetical order. Also, use correct in-text citation formatting.
Each reference you have listed must have an in-text citation!

Helpful information:

https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/apaquickguide/intext is a resource for correct use of in-text citation.

https://www.mybib.com/tools/apa-citation-generator is a resource for proper references page formatting using the APA style.

You can schedule an appointment with the Academic Support Center (Room 2301) for help in putting together your paper. Follow the link to see the
tutoring hours and to
schedule an appointment.
http://ccc.edu/colleges/malcolm-x/departments/Pages/Tutoring.aspx

You are welcome to
visit during office hours, with a rough draft in hand, and we can review your paper.

You can get a free copy of Microsoft Office, including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel:
http://www.ccc.edu/services/pages/get-a-copy-of-microsoft-office-for-students.aspx

Turnitin will give me student reports similar to this:

The 59% and 76% similarity report examples are signs of a plagiarized paper. After submission, you will be able to view your similarity report.