Formal Laboratory Report Guidelines

Introduction to the Assignment

Your report will contain the following sections:

1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Experimental
4. Data
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
7. References

The Sections

Abstract

This is a short 1-2 paragraph section which summarizes the purpose of the experiment and gives a concise description of the experimental methods used and the results obtained. The abstract should be written after you have completed the body of your report.

Introduction

The introduction should provide the reader with the theoretical background upon which the experiment is based. You should give background on vanadium and its oxidation states as well as background on the chromatographic technique used to separate the redox products. You will need to include reaction equations for all redox reactions. Equations in the body of the report should be identified with equation numbers for referencing them in your text. You must footnote your sources of this information.

A + B ----> C (eq. 1)

Questions 1, 2 and 4 that were included on the experiment handout should be incorporated into your introduction.

Experimental Section

For this report, you are to give a detailed description of exactly all of the work you did in this experiment. The procedure should contain sufficient detail that someone else could use your experimental section to reproduce the experiment. Remember to use the passive voice in writing this section. Do not use statements such as:

I heated the mixture with a flame

Rather, this statement should be written as:

The mixture was heated.....

You should describe the experimental equipment used. You do not need to detail how you carried out visible spectroscopy. You do need to indicate the instrument model and any solvents used. For example:

All visible spectra were obtained on a _________ model xxxxx UV-Visible spectrophotometer in aqueous solution.

Since you didn't develop this experimental procedure, you must provide a reference for the procedure. You should include any important observations of chemical and physical changes that you observed during the experiment in this section of the report.

Data Section

This is where you will include all your raw data including results of any tests performed and copies of any spectra obtained.

Discussion

In this section of the report, you evaluate the data you included in the Data Section. You must evaluate the data fairly even if contadicts what you expected the outcome of the procedure to be. You should discuss what the tests done on your products indicated about the nature of those products. Chemical equations (or references to chemical equations appearing in other sections of the report) might be necessary here. This is also where you discuss any spectra you obtained and what each spectrum indicates about the sample. Any discussion of possible sources of error should be done in this section of the report.

Conclusions

This is the section of the report where you summarize your results and present conclusions that you draw from these results. If there is more than one conclusion that can be drawn from the data, all possibilities should be presented, compared and contrasted.

References

You must include footnotes for any literature sources from which you took information. You will use the "ACS Style Guide" for correct reference format.

Report Formatting

Your report must be typed in 12 pt sarif style font and double spaced having 1" top and bottom margins and 1.5" left and right margins. Footnotes are to be placed in a separate reference section at the end of the report and numbered sequentially in the body of the report. References are to be formatted as described in "The ACS Style Guide", pp. 106-114. Any figures that appear in your report must have a caption that includes a figure number and a brief description (no more than one or two sentences) that should be understandable without the reader having to refer to the body of the paper. The proper way to prepare figures and tables can be found in "The ACS Style Guide" (pp. 128-135 of 2nd edition or Chapters 15 & 16 of the 3rd edition). Chapter 2 (2nd edition) or Chapter 9 (3rd edition) of the "The ACS Style Guide" provides all the information you need to know about proper grammar, punctuation, style, word usage and acceptable abbreviations for use in chemical writing. You should review this material before writing your report.