How to Write a Chemistry Lab Report
Familiarize yourself with the lab manual., Know the format., Hypothesize., Be familiar with your instructor’s expectations., Start with your title, personal, and class information., Leave space at the beginning for your abstract., Write an...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the lab manual.
This is the outline and instructions given to you by your teacher or professor.
Make sure you understand exactly what you are doing and why.
If you have questions, make sure you bring them up with the instructor before class., Laboratory reports have a particular written style.
Unlike creative essays or papers for humanities classes, a report for chemistry is not supposed to have your own personal stamp on it.
The essential writing elements are:
Write in complete sentences.
Use passive voice
-- “Water was poured” rather than “I poured water.” Stay in the third person
-- “Scientists claim X” rather than “I discovered scientists claim X.” Be careful of verb tenses.
Most of your report should use present tense verbs, unless you are explaining what you did in the experiment, or what has been written in the past about it.
For example, “One problem in conducting this experiment is X” rather than “One problem in conducting this experiment was/will be X.” , What do you think this experiment will do? What will you learn? Hypothesizing, or making an informed guess about what the result of the experiment will be, is one of the key elements in any scientific experiment.
Keep in mind that it’s only an idea about what might happen, and you often come up with a different result.”At 50 degrees Celsius, when XO is combined with YO, XY and O2 will form.” , Though there are elements that will appear in all lab reports, each instructor might have different expectations.
Be certain that you know, for example, how your teacher or professor wants citations and/or endnotes, whether he or she will require a list of materials, and exactly how a final lab report should be formatted. , Make sure you follow your instructor's preferred order.
If he or she didn't express a preference, begin with the title of the experiment you are going to conduct.
Any lab report will need to include your name and the name of your lab partner(s) and their email addresses.
Also provide the date that you did the experiment, the name of the teacher or professor, and the class name, number, and section number (if applicable).Experiment 7:
Identification of the Results of X + Y Eloise Texeira ([email protected]) Partner:
Jose Marques ([email protected]) CHEM 215-08 July 14, 2015 Professor Lewis , This will be the part where you sum up your work.
You will tell the reader what you did and why, and then the results.
Since it’s at the beginning, however, you will need to wait to write it until the end. , This will give your reader the basics of the experiment you will be conducting.Explain what you are testing and how you will do so.
Discuss any previous research on the topic.
Include a hypothesis in your introduction.
What do you believe you will discover? This is the essence of the hypothesis, and an integral part of any scientific report.
Why do you believe that your experiment will turn out in a particular way? Any Introduction will answer the following questions:
Why did you choose to do this experiment? What was the purpose of the experiment? What do we know beforehand (previous knowledge or research around the experiment)? , You can typically find this in the lab manual for the class.
It is the chemical reaction that you are going to be conducting, laid out with the reactants and products labeled and their structure.
You will also need to indicate the temperature of the experiment and the solvent.At 50 degrees celsius, XO(l) + YO(l) XY(l) +O2(g) , This is the part where you will conduct the experiment and write down every step.
Do not just copy the lab manual
-- tell the reader what happened in your particular experiment.
Document everything as you are going through the process.Liquid XO and YO were heated to the appropriate temperature using a burner.
Temperature was tested with a thermometer.
The two liquids were poured into a third heated tube.
A gas and a liquid were formed from the combination of XO and YO.” , At the end of the Experimental Section, you need to let the reader know exactly what emerged from your experiment.
Be sure to use the proper format.
The appropriate order is:
Name and amount (in grams) of the final product Melting point of the final product with the known literature value Gas Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy (GCMS) data H NMR data Infared Spectroscopy (IR) data , This is where you analyze your results and whether your experiment went as expected.
If not, why not? How did the experiment match (or not) your hypothesis? Were there problems in doing the experiment that might have affected the results? , In a short and concise section, sum up what you learned from the experiment and whether it went as you thought.
Unlike the Results and Discussion Section, the Conclusion is more focused on the broad ideas brought up in your introduction than the specifics of your particular experiment., Be sure to include the lab manual.
Using the citation style chosen by your instructor, write down all of the books or websites that you used to prepare and learn about the experiment.
This would also typically include your textbook., The abstract (no more than 200 words) should give the reader the basics about your experiment and its results.
It should be self-contained, meaning that a person should be able to read the abstract and get a summary of your entire work without having to read any other section.
Even though you’re writing the abstract at the end, it will end up going at the beginning of the report. -
Step 2: Know the format.
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Step 3: Hypothesize.
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Step 4: Be familiar with your instructor’s expectations.
-
Step 5: Start with your title
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Step 6: personal
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Step 7: and class information.
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Step 8: Leave space at the beginning for your abstract.
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Step 9: Write an Introduction.
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Step 10: Include the Reaction Equation.
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Step 11: Conduct the Experimental Section.
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Step 12: Record your results.
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Step 13: Write a Results and Discussion Section.
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Step 14: Write a Conclusion.
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Step 15: Cite your sources.
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Step 16: Create an abstract.
Detailed Guide
This is the outline and instructions given to you by your teacher or professor.
Make sure you understand exactly what you are doing and why.
If you have questions, make sure you bring them up with the instructor before class., Laboratory reports have a particular written style.
Unlike creative essays or papers for humanities classes, a report for chemistry is not supposed to have your own personal stamp on it.
The essential writing elements are:
Write in complete sentences.
Use passive voice
-- “Water was poured” rather than “I poured water.” Stay in the third person
-- “Scientists claim X” rather than “I discovered scientists claim X.” Be careful of verb tenses.
Most of your report should use present tense verbs, unless you are explaining what you did in the experiment, or what has been written in the past about it.
For example, “One problem in conducting this experiment is X” rather than “One problem in conducting this experiment was/will be X.” , What do you think this experiment will do? What will you learn? Hypothesizing, or making an informed guess about what the result of the experiment will be, is one of the key elements in any scientific experiment.
Keep in mind that it’s only an idea about what might happen, and you often come up with a different result.”At 50 degrees Celsius, when XO is combined with YO, XY and O2 will form.” , Though there are elements that will appear in all lab reports, each instructor might have different expectations.
Be certain that you know, for example, how your teacher or professor wants citations and/or endnotes, whether he or she will require a list of materials, and exactly how a final lab report should be formatted. , Make sure you follow your instructor's preferred order.
If he or she didn't express a preference, begin with the title of the experiment you are going to conduct.
Any lab report will need to include your name and the name of your lab partner(s) and their email addresses.
Also provide the date that you did the experiment, the name of the teacher or professor, and the class name, number, and section number (if applicable).Experiment 7:
Identification of the Results of X + Y Eloise Texeira ([email protected]) Partner:
Jose Marques ([email protected]) CHEM 215-08 July 14, 2015 Professor Lewis , This will be the part where you sum up your work.
You will tell the reader what you did and why, and then the results.
Since it’s at the beginning, however, you will need to wait to write it until the end. , This will give your reader the basics of the experiment you will be conducting.Explain what you are testing and how you will do so.
Discuss any previous research on the topic.
Include a hypothesis in your introduction.
What do you believe you will discover? This is the essence of the hypothesis, and an integral part of any scientific report.
Why do you believe that your experiment will turn out in a particular way? Any Introduction will answer the following questions:
Why did you choose to do this experiment? What was the purpose of the experiment? What do we know beforehand (previous knowledge or research around the experiment)? , You can typically find this in the lab manual for the class.
It is the chemical reaction that you are going to be conducting, laid out with the reactants and products labeled and their structure.
You will also need to indicate the temperature of the experiment and the solvent.At 50 degrees celsius, XO(l) + YO(l) XY(l) +O2(g) , This is the part where you will conduct the experiment and write down every step.
Do not just copy the lab manual
-- tell the reader what happened in your particular experiment.
Document everything as you are going through the process.Liquid XO and YO were heated to the appropriate temperature using a burner.
Temperature was tested with a thermometer.
The two liquids were poured into a third heated tube.
A gas and a liquid were formed from the combination of XO and YO.” , At the end of the Experimental Section, you need to let the reader know exactly what emerged from your experiment.
Be sure to use the proper format.
The appropriate order is:
Name and amount (in grams) of the final product Melting point of the final product with the known literature value Gas Chromatography Mass Spectroscopy (GCMS) data H NMR data Infared Spectroscopy (IR) data , This is where you analyze your results and whether your experiment went as expected.
If not, why not? How did the experiment match (or not) your hypothesis? Were there problems in doing the experiment that might have affected the results? , In a short and concise section, sum up what you learned from the experiment and whether it went as you thought.
Unlike the Results and Discussion Section, the Conclusion is more focused on the broad ideas brought up in your introduction than the specifics of your particular experiment., Be sure to include the lab manual.
Using the citation style chosen by your instructor, write down all of the books or websites that you used to prepare and learn about the experiment.
This would also typically include your textbook., The abstract (no more than 200 words) should give the reader the basics about your experiment and its results.
It should be self-contained, meaning that a person should be able to read the abstract and get a summary of your entire work without having to read any other section.
Even though you’re writing the abstract at the end, it will end up going at the beginning of the report.
About the Author
Matthew Stokes
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