how not to write a thesis

[270406] are worm-class university Science undergrads taught e finer points of scientific writing...?

excerpts:

Hence, departing from our assumption that the scientific world still has limited knowledge, there is still an open probability to identify novel proteins...

For the A process itself, one B colony consisting C construct and one colony consisting the D construct were taken & dipped together into the E medium...

cell colonies sound like McDonald's chicken McNuggets/fish McDippers, & E medium like BBQ sauce =P (for e record, e colonies are dissociated in e medium by vortexing)

After the initial F experiment finished, some G and H works were done for around 2 months...

The reason why J primers were used was because that the size of K gene was L base pairs and normally one sequencing primer can only give result up to around M base pairs.

However, after doing it for around 2 months from January until February, we did not get many N colonies from transformation...the sequences of the inserts were all wrong and meaningless because they contained many A and T nucleotides. Thus, because time was running out so fast, the P method was changed...

if colonies don't grow well in January & February in e northern hemisphere, try growing them in spring or summer instead? but then again this poor fella was really hard up for time, which was running out so fast ;) if AT-rich sequences are wrong & meaningless, GC-rich sequences have e properties of being right & meaningful, apart from requiring a higher denaturation temperature? =P

The formula that was used to calculate the needed amount for each PCR
product for ligation was obtained from Promega [followed by image of formula presumably copied & pasted from e Promega website]

Promega is not just a biotech company, but e Greek Goddess of molar ratios ;)

The DNA...was taken from the half part of the bacteria colonies....The remaining halves of the colonies were dipped into Q medium...

All of the clones' identities were not disclosed in order to keep
secrecy, except for one clone...

There were some reasons on why only that particular clone was picked for
further analysis. Firstly, considering the nature and time limit for this
project, it is wise if we only work on one....'

as one (very honest =P) boss said, 'we? I didn't do anything!'

The method was stopped and changed into....

The R process that was always failed and had become a bottleneck....

The S cloning was applauded becuase it has given promising results.

The most logical problem would be that there were problems in the T process. However, we already ensured that all of the U buffers and enzymes were in good condition....This failure needs to be studied further and the answers are yet to be discovered.

In the discussion part of this paper, only V is going to be discussed....the remaining....are not going to be discussed further because of the limitation of time for the project. The identities of W are also kept unavowed for the benefit of the lab.

this student has presented scientific journal articles during lab meetings, & has probably read a reasonable number of such articles for coursework modules & in order to cite them as references in e thesis....but somehow nothing about e style of scientific writing was absorbed? were all of this student's lab reports & term papers over e course of e 4 years of undergraduate studies written in e same way? & marked & accepted by tutors/lecturers? or corrected, but e corrections ignored? or never returned to e student?

e cat fears for this student's grade....although this student should have no problem graduating with a BSc(Hons) (how much is e degree worth anyway?). to be fair not all of them produce work like this. there are two FYP theses on e cat's desk, of which one is this masterpiece. e other was written by a student with a far better grasp of scientific language & how to write in 'third person', albeit with far from perfect English grammar (English is not e native language of both students); e cat is not really happy though with e use of its data in e second thesis without permission nor acknowledgement!!

N.B. e cat would like to ban e use/overuse/abuse of e word 'actually', not just in thesis-writing but in any form of writing/speech...

[ filed under: labrat ]