List of boxes
Preface to the 4th edition
Guided tour
For the student
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations

Study and examination skills
1.         The importance of transferable skills
2.         Managing your time
3.         Working with others
4.         Taking notes from lectures and texts
5.         Learning and revision
6.         Curriculum options, assessment and exams
7.         Preparing your curriculum vitae

Information technology and library resources
8.         Finding and citing published information
9.         Evaluating information
10.       Using online resources
11.       Using spreadsheets
12.       Word processors, databases and other packages

Communicating information
13.       Organising a poster display
14.       Giving a spoken presentation
15.       General aspects of scientific writing
16.       Writing essays
17.       Reporting practical and project work
18.       Writing literature surveys and reviews

Fundamental laboratory techniques
19.       Your approach to practical work
20.       Health and safety
21.       Working with liquids
22.       Basic laboratory procedures
23.       Principles of solution chemistry
24.       pH and buffer solutions

The investigative approach
25.       The principles of measurement
26.       SI units and their use
27.       Making observations
28.       Drawing diagrams
29.       Basic fieldwork procedures
30.       Samples and sampling
31.       Scientific method and design of experiments
32.       Making notes of practical work
33.       Project work

Obtaining and identifying specimens
34.       Collecting animals and plants
35.       Fixing and preserving animals and plants
36.       Collecting and isolating microbes
37.       Naming and classifying organisms
38.       Identifying plants and animals
39.       Identifying microbes

Manipulating and observing specimens
40.       The purpose and practice of dissection
41.       Introduction to microscopy
42.       Preparing specimens for light microscopy
43.       Setting up and using a light microscope
44.       Interpreting microscope images
45.       Sterile technique
46.       Cell culture
47.       Working with animal and plant tissues and cells
48.       Photography and imaging
49.       Measuring growth and response

Advanced laboratory techniques
50.       Calibration and its application to quantitative analysis
51.       Immunological methods
52.       Enzyme studies
53.       Mendelian genetics
54.       Molecular biology techniques
55.       Light measurement
56.       Radioactive isotopes and their uses
57.       Measuring oxygen content
58.       Centrifugation
59.       Spectroscopic techniques
60.       Chromatography

Analysis and presentation of data
61.       Manipulating and transforming raw data
62.       Using graphs
63.       Presenting data in tables
64.       Hints for solving numerical problems
65.       Descriptive statistics
66.       Choosing and using statistical tests

Answers to study exercises
Index