Note the number of the plate from which you made the count. You should add this number of zeros to the end of the number you wrote down. Add one more zero to your total number. Placing one gram in 9 ml represents one factor of ten dilution. Each successive transfer is another factor of ten dilution.
Colonies can be characterized based on their color, shape, consistency, and type of edge they have.
These characteristics aid toward identifying the type of bacterium that made the colony. You can use your dissecting scope, or the dissecting scope with the video camera attached, to get a closer look at your colonies. This technique is not perfect, we will only be able to get an estimate of how many are there, and this will be a very low estimate. Once you go through the procedure, you may start to see the limitations of these techniques.