Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I Have to write an extended essay for my course, the essay is supposed to be around 4000 words. My essay in particular is in biologyand the topic is "to what extent can the bactrium lactus bacillius be used to treat lactose intolerance". To get anything above a C i need to analyse raw data related to my topic. I was wondering as to whether anyone could suggest websites where i can browze scientific studies, or collect raw statistics or data in the field of biology? I would be grateful with any refrences to book or anything that might help me. Thanks for the help!
Basically, where do people go to get raw data in the field of biology?

Hi Hutchdan,

Biologists get their raw data by running experiments in their labs and the raw data is usually not published in the papers they write for scientific journals. I am sure your professor knows this and did not mean for you to go looking for scientists' lab notebooks to borrow in order to write your research paper. Probably he wants you to read journal articles where there are actual data results rather than a review which just talks about the results. The idea is for you to understand how experiments might be done to study the use of lactobacillus to treat lactose intolerance. You will need to use a database like PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed and find a selection of papers that show experimental results. You can google the subject too and sometimes you can get access to papers that way. Many journals require payment to download articles [$30-40!!] so you will be limited to open-access journals or those that a university library subscribes to if you have access to their server.

It sounds like you are being asked to write a literature review on the subject of using lactobacillus therapeutically as a probiotic to treat lactose intolerance, so what you want to look for are research articles in which human subjects are tested. In PubMed, you can set up the keyword search to limit it to humans. You won't get the 'raw' data, but you will see figures that show data and this is what I think he means. Here's a couple of examples: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9925136 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20391953

If you find a review on the therapeutic use of lactobacillus, you can read that as a starting point but you will also need to read or at least look at 15-20 research articles and be able to cite them in your bibliography if you want to get an A on your paper. One thing that always looks good is if you include a table with a summary of results or a bulleted list in a box showing the most relevant data. This makes it much easier to understand and more convincing.

Didn't your prof give you more guidelines about how to format the 'essay' than just a length of 4000 words? There are some Word templates for writing a research paper you can check out if you have Office 2007 or 2010. Be sure to use section headings to make the content easier to understand. A brief table of contents is a nice addition too.

If you have more specific questions, i'll be happy to help.

Best wishes,

SciB

SciB wrote:Hi Hutchdan,

Biologists get their raw data by running experiments in their labs and the raw data is usually not published in the papers they write for scientific journals. I am sure your professor knows this and did not mean for you to go looking for scientists' lab notebooks to borrow in order to write your research paper. Probably he wants you to read journal articles where there are actual data results rather than a review which just talks about the results. The idea is for you to understand how experiments might be done to study the use of lactobacillus to treat lactose intolerance. You will need to use a database like PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed and find a selection of papers that show experimental results. You can google the subject too and sometimes you can get access to papers that way. Many journals require payment to download articles [$30-40!!] so you will be limited to open-access journals or those that a university library subscribes to if you have access to their server.

It sounds like you are being asked to write a literature review on the subject of using lactobacillus therapeutically as a probiotic to treat lactose intolerance, so what you want to look for are research articles in which human subjects are tested. In PubMed, you can set up the keyword search to limit it to humans. You won't get the 'raw' data, but you will see figures that show data and this is what I think he means. Here's a couple of examples: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9925136 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20391953

If you find a review on the therapeutic use of lactobacillus, you can read that as a starting point but you will also need to read or at least look at 15-20 research articles and be able to cite them in your bibliography if you want to get an A on your paper. One thing that always looks good is if you include a table with a summary of results or a bulleted list in a box showing the most relevant data. This makes it much easier to understand and more convincing.

Didn't your prof give you more guidelines about how to format the 'essay' than just a length of 4000 words? There are some Word templates for writing a research paper you can check out if you have Office 2007 or 2010. Be sure to use section headings to make the content easier to understand. A brief table of contents is a nice addition too.

If you have more specific questions, i'll be happy to help.

Best wishes,

SciB

Sorry for the late reply! Thanks for the help! I'll be in touch