You may be required to keep formal records of your experimental work in a laboratory note book. A laboratory notebook book is a record of all observations, data and calculations from your work in the lab.  In the real world, laboratory notebooks are taken very seriously.  Scientists in governmental, educational and industrial labs are expected to maintain legible, thorough laboratory notebooks which document their work.  A well written laboratory notebook will enable a company to protect possible patent rights and prevent wasting energy from repeating work previously done.

Formal lab write-ups for several experiment performed during the semester are expected and should be completed using the information contained within your lab note book. Faculty evaluation of your performance is based on an assessment of your write up. Although very much related, your lab note book and formal write-ups vary greatly in their composition. The following information describes these differences in detail:

USING YOUR LAB BOOK

Many consider the lab book almost to be a formalized 'scientific diary' that charts the events that occur during the course of an experiment. Write as much as you can during the experiment, be sure to include a description of what you did experimentally, tables containing results -numerical data, lists of chemicals used and products formed  (along with their respective masses and/or volumes). Also record ANY observations as they happen - they are often the key to understanding the chemistry behind what is going on and it's unlikely you'll be able to remember exactly what happened after the fact!
 

SOME SIMPLE  GUIDELINES FOR USING YOUR LAB. NOTE BOOK

1. Always bring your laboratory notebook to each laboratory session.
2. Label the front cover with your name, course number and lab section.
3. Maintain a table of contents on the first two pages.
4. Number the right  (facing) pages and make your entries on these pages only.  No data entry should be done on the left  side 'carbon' pages.
5. All data and observations  must be recorded directly into the lab book in "real time" using ink.
6. If a mistake has been made, draw a single line through the entry and note the correction.  Never completely delete any entry from a laboratory record book by erasing, using liquid paper, or by removing pages.
7. You are expected to take the time to write neatly and legibly.
8. Complete any initial analysis of results in your lab book before leaving the lab - this may be the only way of determining if you performed the experiment correctly.
 
 

FORMAL EXPERIMENTAL WRITE UPS

Data taken from your lab note book is used to complete formal experimental write ups, although duplicate 'carbons' from your note books may also be collected to ensure the validity of the data presented in your write up. Each formal experimental write up is completed in font size 12 and typically contains the following sections:

TITLE AND DATE

Seems obvious, but people do forget.

OBJECTIVE

The objective is essentially a statement of the goals of the experiment. Although only written as a goal oriented statement, you may consider the objective to be a question - which your experimental results and their analysis will in turn answer.

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

This where you display your results and observations from the experiment. ALWAYS INCLUDE ANY NUMERICAL DATA IN A TABLE. If you have performed the lab correctly, this will essentially only require you to reproduce the information you collected in lab. A key point - DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES REPEAT A DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE IN THIS (OR ANY OTHER) SECTION OR YOUR WRITE UP. The experimental procedure is only included in the lab book as you progress through the experiment.

You must also analyze the results you collected in this section. For example, calculate % yields and perform statistical tests (mean and SD) on the masses of products formed. ALL GRAPHS ARE ALSO INCLUDED IN THIS SECTION (a graph may be considered to be a visual way of analyzing or interpreting data).

DISCUSSION

A thorough discussion is expected for every lab write-up. Summarize and explain your results.  THIS IS MOST OFTEN ACCOMPLISHED BY WRITING A BALANCED CHEMICAL EQUATIONS. For example, if you mixed solutions of  silver nitrate and sodium iodide, you would have observed the formation of a yellow precipitate. This can be expressed best by writing the appropriate chemical equation:

AgNO3 (aq)  +  NaI (aq)  =  AgI(s)  +  NaNO3 (aq)

Try to avoid writing lengthy, rambling descriptions and explanations of what happen if at all possible - scientific writing by its very nature is concise and makes frequent use of graphs and equations. extra points are NOT awarded for overly long reports(!) You are also expected to discuss whether your data makes sense (and if not, why you think it is not correct), where are possible places for error, and any other pertinent comments about the lab.

CONCLUSION

The conclusion is a summary of what you found out during the experiment. It can be considered an answer to the "question" asked by the objective. Repeat pertinent numerical results here also, such as for example the mass and  % yield of any product you recovered.

QUESTIONS

Questions are often asked at the end of the experiment. Complete theses questions in a separate section and answer using full sentences and showing all work. Some findings may be repeated from previous sections, but include them here too (scientific papers often contain redundant information, but this is intentional).