Lab Protocols

Protocol Guidelines

Title

The title should contain key words that will serve to describe the procedure. It should also include the your name and the date last modified.

Purpose

The purpose should be a short descriptive paragraph that gives background information about the procedure and any of the relevant insights or history of the type of experiment being performed.

Materials

This section should contain the recipes for buffers, etc., the name, make and model of any instrumentation that is used specific to this procedure, and the source of any specialty reagent or plastic-ware or kit component used in the procedure

Procedure

This section should be an easy-to-follow, step-by-step protocol for performing the procedure. You might also include any tips and observational insights that might come up at any of the steps. Include, if possible, the number of hours or days expected to complete the procedure and suggest what can be done in each day. It should be detailed as to experimental parameters, i.e. settings on any equipment etc. and volumes and calculations. Illustrations and figures are welcome, and animation figures would be super, but please try to limit the figure size to <40-50kb.

Data Analysis and Expected Results

If applicable, this section should contain sample calculations or other forms of interpreting the data collected from the procedure, use tables or figures if necessary.

References

Include citations and credit the originator of the protocol if possible. Suggest more readings or relevant web resources.

Keywords

Please include a list of keywords to help when searching the protocols.

Please Note:

This format is recommended so that everyone, including the non-experts, can easily understand the protocols.Not all protocols will have or need all of the sections or information described above, please tailor your protocols, with the information you have, to this format for uniformity.
You can add more sub-sections as needed under the main headings.