Another inconsistency in the strategy would be the way that people were counting their stomata. For example, some people may have only included in their counts the stomata that are fully visible in the field of view. Others may have included stomata, which was only fractionally visible. This would have led to unreliable results or even anomalous results.
This problem could have been solved if everybody was told to follow the same method, not only for obtaining the imprint of the stomata, but also for the way in which it was viewed under the microscope. This would help to make the results more reliable, because they would have been gained under the same conditions, and there is less chance of anomalies rising due to differences in procedures. It may also help to take more counts for the stomatal frequency. For example, it may be more reliable to use more than three counts for each of the two areas of a leaf. This will lead to a wider range of results.
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