General Guidelines for Doing Undergraduate Research

Students must hold a 3.0 general GPA (not including grades in Biol 395) to enroll in Biol 395 or 396. Students in Biol 395 or 396 are generally expected to work 3-4 hours per week for each credit received. When enrolled in Biol 691/692 in the final semester, students may still be carrying out research or may have already completed the research needed for writing the honors thesis. Students may not receive pay for research that is used for (1) course credit (Biol 395 or 396) or (2) an undergraduate thesis, regardless of whether credit was given at the time of the research.

Undergraduate research (Biol 395 or 396) should represent an independent research project. The first semester of Biol 395 is often started by learning techniques and gaining familiarity with the research area, but should directed toward a research question that the student can clearly articulate. By the end of the first semester, the student should have gained some independence in the research.

The student's research effort should attempt to answer particular questions that are distinct from others being addressed in the lab. This effort may require learning techniques from others, but the research project should be directed, wherever possible, toward helping the student to gain independence from technicians, grad students, or postdocs. These individuals may act as supervisors, but the student should not be carrying out their research or the research of the lab. Thus, the student should (1) play a key role in initiating and modifying the experimental plan as needed, (2) obtain the data, (3) analyze it with advice from mentors and (4) write the research report. Simply observing others conducting experimental procedures or participating in experiments as a part of a large group is not suitable for credit in Biology 395 or 396.

If you are in doubt as to whether a particular project is suitable for credit in 395 or 396, consult with the Biology undergraduate honors committee. The following is offered as an example of how a student research project might evolve:

In a lab studying bacterial colonization of roots, an undergraduate student spent 3 weeks learning from a technician how to measure root colonization. The student was interested in examining the effects of bacterial motility on root colonization. A wild-type bacterium and a non-motile mutant of this bacterium were obtained from researchers at the University of California. The student decided to examine the effect of bacterial motility on root colonization at various soil water contents. She did a set of experiments and collected the data. The data were analyzed using established statistical methods and programs that she was taught by others in the lab. She tabulated, calculated, and analyzed the data and drew conclusions from it. These conclusions suggested further experiments, which she designed in collaboration with the lab PI. She then carried out these additional experiments, analyzed them, and wrote a brief paper describing her experiments and their results.

For more information:

· See the Biology Dept. webpage on Undergraduate Research for information on steps in choosing a research mentor, enrollment in Biol 395, and graded evaluation of Biol 395.

· See the guidelines for Honors in Biology and for the Biology Commendation in Undergraduate Research to check on eligibility for these programs and steps in completing the requirements.