Chemistry 216

Formal Lab Report

Chemistry 216
Fall 2013
Guidelines For Formal Lab Report
Lab reports are due 7 days after the completion of the experiment, and must be submitted
as a hard copy to your GSI.
Although it is an individual assignment; you may discuss results with your lab mates, but
each group member must do their own writing. The report should be no more than 3
pages (not including title page, figures and references) and should be 1.5 to 2.0 pt.
spaced.
The report should contain the following sections:
1. Title Page (1 pts.)
2. Introduction (3 pts.)
3. Reaction scheme (2 pts.)
4. Experimental (4 pts.)
5. Results & Discussion (6 pts.)
6. Conclusion (2 pts.)
7. References (2 pts.)
Total = 20 points
Instructions by section:
1. The title page should contain a unique and descriptive title, your name, your lab
section, GSI name, and the term and year.
2. The introduction should be 2-3 paragraphs in length and should 1) be written in
your own words and 2) contain some background information not found in the
online lab manual. Useful databases for searching background information are
Reaxsys, Google Scholar, or Wikipedia. Be sure to cite the original reference
source (journal, text, patent) and not the database on which you found it (i.e.
Wikipedia is not a valid reference).
An outstanding introduction:
i.
ii.

iii.

Clearly describes the overall purpose or objective of the experiment.

Concisely provides appropriate background information to contextualize
the experiment, convey the significance of the work, and capture the
readers interest. Keep in mind that, although science writing is typically
more concise and logical, it doesnt have to be boring!
Tells the reader what to expect, if they were to read further. Including any
important concepts, unique techniques or methods that will be used.

3. The reaction scheme should include the basic components of each reaction
including starting materials, products, reagents, solvents, and reaction
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temperature. An example reaction scheme is shown below. Note a reaction

scheme is not a mechanism; it does not include curved arrow notation or
intermediates. The scheme should be drawn using Chemdraw or an analogous
chemistry drawing tool. It should be formatted consistently. Separate schemes
may be drawn for each reaction, if the product or starting materials are different.
However, to save space, structural differences may be illustrated by an X or R and
using a dashed line (to indicate variable position). Be sure to define X or R as
shown in the example below.
If the order in which reagents are added is important, number each step (i.e. an
acidic work up is performed after the reaction is complete). In the case of the
acetylation reaction, the HCl and sodium acetate must be added in separate steps
and a 1. and 2. are used to show the reader that HCl must be added first and
sodium acetate last. Numbers are only used when order is important.

Scheme 1. Acetylation reaction of aniline and an unknown substituted amine.

4. The experimental section is a condensed technical description of your
experiment, and should not contain any analysis or discussion. This section should
be written in the style indicated by the literature examples shown in Appendix 1 at
the end of this document.. Formatting and arrangement should be consistent from
paragraph to paragraph.
An outstanding experimental:
i.
Is written in past tense
ii.
Includes approximately a separate paragraph for each separate reaction
iii.
Is written in paragraph form (Do not use bulleted lists)
iv.
Uses proper abbreviations for amounts like grams (g), milligrams (mg),
millimoles (mmol) and milliliters (mL). Note that there is a space between
the number and the unit (i.e. 5 mL).
v.
Uses the degree symbol when reporting temperatures. A space is used
between the number and the degrees symbol, but not between the degrees
symbol and the unit C (70 C).
vi.
Includes decimal numbers with the leading zero before the decimal place
(0.5 rather than .5).
vii.
Uses superscripts and subscripts appropriately (i.e. -1 in cm-1 if
reporting wavenumbers or 4 in MgSO4).
viii.
Is written concisely and omits inappropriate details. Items that would be
common knowledge for the experimenter, like using a thermometer to
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make temperature readings, can be left out. Items such as extractions are
done by chemists every day, so details like what layer was aqueous versus
what layer was organic are not necessary and just take up space.
5. The results & discussion section should be written according to the guidelines
provided below;
It should reflect your ability to do thorough interpretation of the data
you acquired.
It should demonstrate your overall understanding of the results within
the context of the experimental objective.
The discussion should be well organized, and should demonstrate your
ability to use logic and persuasion.
Finally, it should be written concisely and include the use of chemistry
terms and technical jargons where appropriate.
6. In the conclusion, you should briefly 1) rephrase information from the
introduction (i.e. why the reaction is of interest), 2) summarize research findings
(i.e. supported or refuted hypothesis, or was inconclusive), and 3) provide an
outlook for the future (i.e. whether additional experimentation is needed). It
should be about 1 paragraph in length. This should be distinct from the final
paragraph of the results & discussion section; in that it should provide a broader
outlook on the reaction itself, and it should not include any details from the
analysis.
7. The references section may be formatted according to the style of your choice,
but it should be formatted consistently using that style. Be sure to cite references,
when appropriate throughout your lab report.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated and will result in a zero for this assignment. See the
following site for information about what constitutes plagiarism:
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/undergraduate/advising/plagNote.asp
Appendix 1: Examples for Experimental Section of Report
These experimental sections were obtained from Chemistry literature and the original
sources are indicated. Note these experimental paragraphs contain information that may
or may not pertain to your specific experiment and should be used only as a general
model.
Example 1 from Mai, D. N.; Wolfe, J.P. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132 (35), pp. 1215712159.
tert-Butyl (2,2-diethoxypent-4-en-1-yl)carbamate (3c). A flame-dried flask was cooled
under a stream of nitrogen and charged with a solution of LiAlH4 in ether (4.2 mL, 4.2
mmol, 1 M). The solution was cooled to 0 C and a solution of 2,2-diethoxypent-4enenitrile (0.470 g, 2.8 mmol) in Et2O (10 mL) was added dropwise. The resulting
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solution was stirred overnight at room temperature, then was diluted with 10 mL of ether,
cooled to 0 C. Water (0.16 mL) was added dropwise, followed by a solution of 10 M
NaOH (0.16 mL) and additional water (0.48 mL). A white precipitate was formed and
adhered to the walls of the reaction vessel. The solution was decanted, and the precipitate
was washed with ether (10 mL). The combined organic layers were filtered through
celite, dried over anhydrous sodium sulfate, filtered, and concentrated in vacuo. The
crude product was dissolved in methylene chloride (15 mL) and solid Boc2O (0.676 g,
3.1 mmol) was added. The resulting mixture was stirred at rt for 12 h, then the solution
was concentrated in vacuo. The crude product was purified by flash chromatography on
silica gel to afford 500 mg (65%) of the title compound as a clear viscous oil. 1H NMR
(400 MHz, CDCl3) 5.885.71 (m, 1 H), 5.145.06 (m, 2H), 4.58 (s, 1 H), 3.553.43 (m,
4 H), 3.28 (d, J = 6.0 Hz, 2 H), 2.40 (d, J = 7.2 Hz, 2 H), 1.44 (s, 9 H), 1.17 (t, J = 6.8 Hz,
6 H);13C NMR (100 MHz, CDCl3) 155.5, 132.6, 118.3, 101.1, 79.2, 55.9, 42.4, 38.1,
28.4, 15.3; IR (film) 3363, 1718, 1507 cm-1.
Example 2 from Holtsclaw, J.; Koreeda, M. Org. Lett., 2004, 6 (21), pp. 3719-3722
Norborn-2-en-7-one (6) (2.0 g, 18.5 mmol) was stirred into a suspension of 1(triphenylphosphoranylidene)-2-propanone (9.24 g, 29 mmol) in benzene (50 mL). A
reflux condenser was attached and the mixture was refluxed for 24 hours under nitrogen.
The reaction mixture was cooled to 23 C and the benzene was removed under reduced
pressure. The resulting residue was disolved in a small amount of methanol and silica gel
was added to form a homogeneous slurry. The methanol was evaporated and the resulting
silica gel residue was loaded directly onto a prepared chromatography column and
purified by flash column chromatography (9:1 hexanes / ethyl acetate) to yield enone 7
(2.20 g, 80%) as a light yellow oil: TLC Rf = 0.41 (3:1 hexanes / ethyl acetate); 1H NMR
(400 MHz, CDCl3) 6.23 (dd, J = 1.8, 1.8 Hz, 2H), 5.52 (s, 1H), 4.11 (br d, J = 3.7 Hz,
1H), 3.00 (br d, J = 2.6 Hz, 1H), 2.17 (s, 3H), 1.80 (br dd, J = 9.9, 4.4 Hz, 1H), 1.75 (br
dd, J = 9.5, 3.7 Hz, 1H), 1.20 (br d, J = 9.5 Hz, 2H); IR (film) 3060, 2967, 2940, 2867,
1701, 1669, 1645, 1424, 1362, 1187 cm-1.
*For NMR spectroscopy, in the parenthesis the first character refers to the splitting (i.e.
d= doublet, t=triplet etc.), the second character refers to the integration (i.e. 2 H, means
this signal corresponds to 2 hydrogens in the compound), and the final character refers to
the coupling constant. If you are not given a coupling constant you do not need to include
it in your report.
**For IR spectroscopy, you only need to list those peaks that appear in the functional
group region (1500-4000 cm-1).