Writing Lab Reports in CHEM 3590

v  All pre-lab answers and lab reports must be typewritten using a word processing software. The graphs and charts must be plotted using any graphical software. Since this is a third-year course, the expectations are relatively high. The lab report should be organized properly; it must be easy to follow and explanations need to be clear.

v  Plagiarism is a serious academic offence and all students must be familiar with the regulations pertaining to it. You cannot copy passages from a textbook or a journal article verbatim without giving a proper reference. Moreover, you are expected to explain things in your own words (with a proper reference for your source) to demonstrate your understanding of the idea/subject. Any diagrams, schemes, or drawings not created by you must also be referenced. You can work on your lab report data as a team, provided that each member contributed equally. Writing of the lab report must be done individually. Each group member must submit their own report and any obvious signs of copying will result in a severe penalty.

v  The purpose of the pre-lab is to get a better understanding of your assigned experiments. It is worth 10% of the total marks of each lab session. Writing of pre-lab answers during regular lab hours is not acceptable. The pre-labs answers must be handed in prior to the beginning of each lab sessions.

v  If you disagree with a grade received for a particular report, you must first see the TA who marked the report. If there is still disagreement, you can consult with the lab instructor about the problem.

Objective of Laboratory Report:

Your report is to convey to the reader/marker the complete description of the experimental exercise performed in the lab.  The reader, after reading the report, should be able to understand why you did the experiment, how you did the experiment, how it could be repeated, what the data represents and a discussion of the work and results. Your report is the only way that the reader can ascertain your understanding, laboratory ability and comprehension of the experiment and equipment.  The report should be written in the third person past tense and should not include phrases like “I did this “.  A chemistry publication containing short papers is a good source to determine how to write in a scientific manner.

The report should contain the following:

Cover Page

The cover page of your lab report must contain following information

1)      Title of the experiment

2)      Your name

3)      Student number

4)      Group number

5)      Experiment number (1-5)

6)      Unknown sample number (if any)

7)      Date of completion of the experiment

Introduction:

Introduce your experiment. Give some background on the technique (applications, advantages, and limitations). Provide the reader with enough information to make it clear what your report is about, what are you investigating (objectives) and why, how is it important, and why this technique.

Materials and Methods:

List the instruments (including the models) used in your experiment, giving all (only) the relevant conditions and settings, which you should have noted at the time of your experiment. Only give instrument settings that could be repeated by the reader on any similar instrument.  Do not give specific instrument details like: “I pushed the green button.”  This gives no information to the reader.

List any reagents used in the experiment, including grade, manufacturer, concentrations, etc. Please be precise and don’t copy the lab manual. Describe in detail the methods used in experiment.  This section should give all the detailed methodology (information) that could be used to repeat this experiment.

Results:

In the results, you describe the data, tables, spectra, chromatograms etc. Each table, graph, etc, should have title, and axis described.  Tables, graphs , etc. should be in the body of your text.  They can be decreased in size to fit in with the overall report. There should be descriptions, explanations, comparisons and possibly some discussion of tables, graphs, etc. of your observations as they come up in the course of the experiment. Refer to the table, graph, etc you that is being described ( i.e “in table 1 it was observed” or “…values obtained are given in Table 1”).

Describe the overall action in the experiment and what you are doing, showing, etc. If you are comparing different setting, what happens? Do you get an increase in signal (what percent increase?), a better (scientifically significant) separation of mixture components, or state there is no change.  Each table/graph should have explanation describing what is happening in table or graph.  Do not have table/graph stand alone and presume reader knows what it is about.

As you acquire data think about how it will address some of the experimental objectives. For example, if you are asked to quantify compound X by technique Y using internal standard method, show all data used in your calculations and make it obvious for the reader how you’ve arrived at your answer (in a logical manner). Don’t assume that the marker will be reading “in between the lines”. If the reader of your report is not convinced that you understand what you are doing and that you’ve adequately explained the process, marks will likely be taken off.

Discussion:

Each of the above results should be discussed.  This should be an expansion of the information in results.  In the discussion you can predict why results turned out as they did by making logical explanations supported by literature or other information.  If there are errors in results explain the error logically with concrete facts.  If results do not agree with expected results determine why and how further experiments may be needed.  The results should be monitored as closely as possible while the experiment is carried out to determine if the results are what expected.

Conclusions:

The conclusion should be related to the overall objectives of the experiments. Were the objectives met.  If not what should be changed. Briefly outline the conclusions drawn from the discussion part and highlight any final results. (Example: Limit of detection (LOD) of technique X is 2 ppm). Usually a paragraph would be enough.

References:

Give proper references when you take key ideas or information from the text book, journals or any other resources. Give the web address if it is from a standard website.  Please try to avoid open resources like Wikipedia. Keep in mind that these references will be randomly checked.

Answers to closing questions:

Address the closing questions given at the end of each lab sessions.   This is separate section and not part of discussion.  Do not simply refer to discussion.

Submission of lab reports:

You will be submitting one lab report for each experiment with a total of five experiments and 5 reports. The lab reports are due the following week after each experiment at the beginning of regular laboratory times. Past due reports are marked out of part marks for up to one week being passed the due date, after which the report could be given a mark of ‘0’. Students must give a notice of at least one day in case they are unable to attend a scheduled experiment or to submit a report on time, so that alternative arrangements could be made promptly.

Lab Report – General Marking Scheme:

Pre lab = 2 marks

Introduction = 2.5 marks

Method = 2.5 marks

Results =5 marks

Discussion = 5 marks

Conclusions = 1 mark

Closing questions 2 marks

TOTAL= 20 marks