CHMB41 Formal Lab Report Instructions
General Instructions
Each student is required to write a formal lab report on their results of Experiment 1: Extraction of 3-component Mixture. If you did not perform. this experiment due to an excused reason (illness, late course addition, etc), then your formal lab report can be written for Experiment 2: Recrystallization and Melting Point.
The report is due FRIDAY NOV 8th by 5pm and counts for 20% of your lab grade. Reports will be graded by your lab TAs and should be submitted according to their preference (online through Quercus, in-person or by email). TAs will post submission instructions in the days leading up to the due date.
To ensure that you follow the formatting guidelines correctly, please download and use the CHMB41 Formal Lab Report Template posted on Quercus. The rest of this document provides detailed information on what’s expected for each of the sections in the template. There are also several supporting documents posted on Quercus: one for Drawing Chemical Structures, one for Searching the Primary Literature, and one Sample Formal Lab Report written on a different lab experiment.
Title/Header
Replace all highlighted sections in the template with your own information. For the title, please provide an accurate and informative title summarizing the experiment in your own words (do not just copy the heading from the manual). Creativity is encouraged!
Introduction
Your introduction serves several purposes. It should: 1) Put the experiment into a larger context – citing why the work is important or relevant. One easy way to do this would be to highlight a recent research article in the primary literature where this same (or similar) reaction was used (See the file “Searching the Primary Literature” on Quercus); 2) Provide relevant background information on the report topic so that a fellow student could read and understand the report (assume they have course-level understanding of the subject, but haven’t done this particular experiment before); 3) clearly state the purpose of the experiment; 4) provide a brief overview of the experimental methods used (the actual experimental procedure will be placed in the Supporting Information file at the end of the document).
Results
This section is for reporting your results only – no discussion or analysis. It should include a reaction scheme for the overall reaction (if relevant), a succinct summary of the reaction conditions/experimental procedure, a description of the product (if relevant) or data obtained, and any characterization methods used (melting point, refractive index, polarimetry, etc).
Discussion
This section is where you will analyze your results. In general, your discussion should aim to answer the following questions: “What was made?”, “How pure was the product?”, and “How could the experiment be improved?” Depending on the experiment you are writing about, there may be other questions to answer which relate back to the original purpose of the lab.
When analyzing the identity and purity of your product, make sure you discuss all available data (e.g. product appearance, yield, melting point, refractive index, polarimetry, etc). If available, make comparisons to any published data for your compound (do not forgot to include references for these!).
When discussing ways to improve the experiment, think about correcting any errors that may have occurred, as well as any suggestions for how to improve the actual experimental protocol.
Conclusions
This paragraph should be a concise summary of the major finding(s) as they relate back to the originally stated purpose of the research. Be sure to include a sentence or two indicating how you arrived at your conclusion (e.g. what data/evidence was used). Note that nothing new should be presented in the conclusion; it should only summarize what’s already presented in the report.
References
Any idea that is not your own must have an accompanying reference. A good rule of thumb is to reference anything which is not common knowledge to a fellow CHMB41 student. Failure to properly cite your ideas in a paper is an academic offense and will be treated as such. If you are unsure about how or what to cite, ASK!
References should be cited in text using superscripted numbers placed after the punctuation. For example:
Correct number placement: Chemistry is fun.1
Incorrect number placement: Chemistry is fun1.
The numbers should be placed in numerical order throughout the text (i.e. the first reference to appear should be number 1; the second should be number 2 etc.). A list of all references should then be compiled at the end of your report and listed in numerical order.
References need be taken from reliable sources. Some examples include: your lab manual, your course textbook, articles in peer-reviewed journals, and chemical supplier’s websites. When you list your references at the end of the report, they need to be formatted according to the conventions of the American Chemical Society (ACS) style. guide. The full guide is rather lengthy, but most of what you’re likely to need can be found in the ACS Style. Quick Guide (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsguide.40303) which provides examples for how to cite the most common types of references. You can also refer to the sample formal lab report for some relevant examples – including how to cite the lab manual and course textbook.
While not required by the ACS Style. Guide, this report has an additional requirement for all online resources to be hyperlinked to their url, or, in the case of online journals, to their DOI (digital object identifier). This will allow your TAs and instructor to quickly access and verify your references.
NOTE: You should have 4-5 references ideally for your formal lab report, and as much as possible, they should be a mix of journal papers, books/book chapters, lab manual(s), textbook(s), and reliable online scientific sources, to show you are able to search a variety of references and cite each properly.
Finally, a note on ChatGPT/Microsoft Co-Pilot and any other LLM: The use of ChatGPT (or similar AI/LLM models) is moderately permitted for use in this course, provided that the following conditions are met: 1) Its use is limited to writing support only – for example fixing grammar and sentence structure; analysis and ideas must be your own; 2) A digital transcript. of your text exchange with ChatGPT is uploaded with your report, 3) You declare the use of ChatGPT in the references section of your report by including the following statement: “This report was written with the support of ChatGPT. All ideas and analysis are those of the author, but the written text was co-generated with ChatGPT.”
If no AI model was used in the writing, please include the following statement instead: “This report was written WITHOUT the support of ChatGPT or other similar models. All ideas, analysis and written text originate from the author alone.”
Supporting Information
This is where you will include full experimental procedures and details of any calculations. Experimental procedures should provide enough detail so that one of your peers could reproduce the reaction as you performed it. It should also include any observations. Note that the convention in chemistry is to write experimental procedures using the past tense and a passive voice (e.g. “The reaction was heated…” NOT “I heated the reaction…”). Please follow this convention when writing your procedure.
There are files and videos describing how to use past passive voice in scientific writing that have been posted on our Quercus website.
English/Writing Style
Part of your grade for this report will come from your ability to use a writing style. appropriate for a chemistry paper. Use clear and concise language, avoiding ambiguous or qualitative statements. Use paragraphs to separate your ideas and present them in a logical order. Make sure your report is thoroughly proofread and spell checked.
Format, Organization
If you use the provided template, your fonts, spacing and margins will automatically be sized appropriately. If you do not use the template, please make sure that you use the following settings: Times New Roman 11 point font, 1.15 spacing, and 2.54 cm margins.
Your final report, excluding the supporting information, should be between 2-3 pages long. Schemes, figures and tables (where appropriate) must be “publication ready” and appropriately sized with an informative caption. If they contain chemical structures, they must be drawn using a chemistry drawing app. There are a few options, but Marvin JS is recommended, since it is very similar to the app used in Top Hat. Instructions for how to use Marvin JS can be found in the Quercus file “Drawing Chemical Structures.”
Note: If you are going to be taking any C-level chemistry courses, you might want to use ChemDraw instead. This is a robust piece of chemistry software that’s free for all UofT students. Instructions for access can be found here: https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/Chemdrawinstructions/home.