Chemistry Lab Notebook

The lab notebook is used as a legal document detailing everything that occurred in the lab. You also use
it in lab to keep track of what you have done and what you have to do. It is therefore very important to
prepare your notebook well and take meticulous notes.

General Usage Directions

 Students are required to purchase a permanently bound notebook.
 All writing in the notebook should be done in non-erasing black or blue pen.
 All writing in the notebook should be legible to the best of your ability. That includes primarily
the formatting of your writing
o use all the space that you need, do not try to squeeze writing in
o write neatly and in the same direction.
o Maintain the logical flow of the notebook, keep all the notes pertaining to the same
experiment together if at all possible. If you need to refer to another notebook page, do so
clearly.
 Original pages are not to be torn out of the notebook (carbon copies will be torn out and handed
in).
 Pages should not be skipped. Parts of pages that are intentionally left empty should be properly
annotated as such.
 Use the first two pages for as a Table of Contents and number all pages consecutively thereafter.
o Table of Contents should include a date, title, and page number for every experiment.
 A lab notebook is a working document, therefore, it will most likely contain errors. Errors
should have a single line drawn through them. There should be no erasures, white out, or
scribbling used in the lab notebook.
Prior to Coming to Lab (the following should be in your notebook):

1. Title: Include enough information to give the reader a sense of the experiment.

2. Date: Each page is to be correctly dated. Multiple same page entries on different dates should
be dated appropriately.

3. Objective: Explain the purpose of the experiment and how you plan to accomplish it. The
objective should be no more than 2 – 3 complete sentences.

4. Properties table and Reaction(s):

Write down pertinent information for all chemicals for every lab. Be sure to leave space for actual moles
and actual grams.

If we are doing a reaction, write the balanced reaction in structural format with any pertinent
information (such as bp, mp, fw, expected moles, expected grams, density, and volume, safety
information) written below the reaction.

Note: You do not need to list common and harmless everyday items (such as water) or provide the list
of the equipment used. The purpose of this section is to make sure you can identify and handle
chemicals safely as well as estimate the need for the chemicals. Use sigmaaldrich.com or similar
resources to create your table.

Example of the properties table:

Substance
MW, Density, Expected Actual Safety
name and Appearance mp oC bp, oC
g/mol g/mL amount amount concerns
formula
Ammonia Transparent
solution liquid with 35.04 -57.5 -37.7 0.91 3.0 mL Corrosive
NH3 (aq) sharp odor

5. Procedure scheme: Give a complete scheme showing what is being accomplished with each step.
A flow chart is recommended for the scheme.

During the lab:

1. Put your partner’s name (both first and last name) in the notebook and on the report sheet.
2. Actually performed procedure: Outline the procedure as you complete the steps. This should be
done in past tense, passive voice.
Note: This should be an at-a-glance synopsis of the procedure so that a properly trained chemist could
easily repeat your procedure. (It should not be a copy of the procedure in the book.) Number the steps
involved so that you may easily refer your observations to the appropriate steps. Most times a drawing
of the apparatus used is beneficial.

3. Data and observations: This section contains all observations, including tables with
measurements, such as weights of products, yields, observed melting/boiling points and any
other pertinent information.
Note: This section of the notebook should be filled out as you are doing the lab, and the contents/results
should be later used in the report sheets and/or lab reports, not the other way around!

4. Calculations: This is where you show how you did your calculations. If you did many
calculations of the same type you only have to show one sample calculation. You will have to
show an example for each type of equation. Show all your work including how you identified
the limiting reagent, calculated theoretical yield, percent yield, Rf values, etc.

After the lab:

Discussion: A section that describes your results, how reliable and reproducible your results were and
how well they agreed with the expected values.
Try to structure discussion in the following shape:
1) What happened?
“The results of the experiment agreed/did not agree with the expected outcome.”
Here: describe the expected outcome, describe your outcome, compare them, and talk about the
percent error and standard deviation, where appropriate. Evaluate precision and accuracy.

For example: “The obtained results did not support the original hypothesis. According to the
hypothesis, the touch of the philosopher’s stone was supposed to convert a sample of lead to
gold. The experiment did, as expected, produce a sample of metal.
However, even though the density of the obtained metal was close to the literature value for gold
with the calculated percent error of only 0.97%, the individual results of the measurements
varied widely, resulting in a standard deviation of 9.45 g/cm3 and relative standard deviation of
48.9%. Physical properties of the product also did not correspond to those of gold. The sample
was unevenly grayish-black in color and pasty in texture.

2) Why did it happen?

“The observations/disagreement between the expected and the experimental data/calculated error
values suggest that …”
Here: troubleshoot your experiment, list the possible sources of error, consult your observations
and collected data, and think about the changes you made to the required procedure, however
small they might have been. Be specific and make sure your explanations make sense.
DO NOT list “Human error” or “Dirty glassware” as the possible sources of error!!!

For example: “As both uneven color and high standard deviation of the collected data suggest,
the conditions of the exposure of the original sample of lead to philosopher’s stone were not
consistent enough, as there was no control of time, temperature, pressure or angle of the
exposure or relative masses of the lead sample and the stone.”

3) How to fix it?

“If the experiment were to be performed again, …”
Here: suggest a reasonable way, or better yet, several ways, to fix the abovementioned errors and
 to improve the reliability/quality of your results..

For example: “In order to obtain reliable data to evaluate the hypothesis, further
experimentation is required. Future experiments should study the effects of the variable
conditions, such as relative stone and sample masses, time of exposure, etc., on the outcome of
the transmutation. The experiment should also include appropriate positive (the ratio of stone to
lead know n to produce good results, a reliable sample of the stone, etc) and negative (such as a
sample of granite of the same size instead of the philosopher’s stone) controls.”

Also see the Discussion instructions document for more details.