paper towels absorbency variables

[deleted-145394]

My son has been working on a project which is testing certain brands of paper towels. A comment on his paper was that the fact that Bounty is a 2-ply paper towel was another "variable" in the project. I disagree since that is just how the paper towel is manufactured otherwise every different manufacturing technique or varying ingredient would be a variable in our project. The whole point is that we are testing different products? Could someone enlighten me if this is incorrect logic on my part?

[deleted-71588]

Welcome to "Scientific Debate". There are multiple opinions on what constitutes a fair test. As a consumer, do you care about this manufacturing difference or do you care about how the product behaves for your application? Does the testing done in the investigation provide useful information to a consumer for their application?

For me to personally form an opinion, I would have to read the description of the test method, the test results, and the conclusions, to draw my own conclusions about the validity of the project (from whatever perspective I choose).

If Bounty was a two ply paper towel and all the rest were 1 ply paper towels, then one can easily argue that there was a variable in terms of the number of plys. If the size of the sheets of different brands varied, the is another variable. If the weight of the sheets used was different, yet another variable. If the thickness of the sheets was different, variable. Bottom line, there will be multiple variations between brands. Did the project writeup point out all these differences? If not, then the comment may just be a minor critique of the write up.

The whole point is that we are testing different products?

Did the writeup state that? If not, don't be upset with people point out the obvious.

Even when you provide reasonable descriptions for the testing goal, test methods, and results, in the scientific community, you will get comments/critiques. It is then the job of others to evaluate both the project and the critiques. All part of the scientific process of distilling agreed upon scientific understanding.