General Chemistry II

Formal laboratory report

The purpose of the Formal Laboratory Report assignment is to prepare STEM majors for the kinds of
writing required in upper-division science courses and in science professions. Because it is such an
important skill, the Formal Lab Report will be worth much credit. Essentially, the Formal Lab Report is a
Research Paper. Therefore, you will conduct research into the theoretical foundations of the experiment
and paraphrase what you learn; plan the structure of the paper using thesis sentences and headings to
emphasize the logical development of ideas; use parenthetical citations to give credit to the authors
whose ideas you summarized; and include a bibliography.

Due dates:

Formal lab reports are due at 11:59 pm on the date indicated in the course schedule. *Check the “late
work” policy in the syllabus.

Students will upload their work to the class platform using the provided link. Hard copies or documents
sent by email will not be accepted.

Instructions:

Use the Word template located at the end of this document. After you complete all the sections, delete
the text highlighted in yellow and save your paper as PDF.
Complete each of the sections as specified without modifying the template format.

Rubric:

Section Points
Frontpage (presentation) 2
Format 8
Writing 10
Title 5
Abstract 10
Introduction 10
Purpose 5
Safety 5
Procedure 10
Experimental data 5
Calculations, results, and
15
discussion
Conclusions 10
References 5
TOTAL 100
*You can access the description of the points distribution through Turnitin.

Protocol:

All Reports must be completed individually. As per WCJC, “Students must submit their work, whether
writing papers, taking exams, or making oral presentations. Plagiarism, taking someone else’s words or
ideas and representing them as your own, is expressly prohibited by the college. Good academic work
must be based on honesty. Submitting someone else’s work as one’s own is considered a serious offense
by the college. Student academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to the following:
 Copying from others on an assignment ("cheating"). Since all students are writing a report on the
same experiment, similarity will be tolerated by up to 30%. If a report has a high similarity rating, I
will review the sources of similarity and apply a penalty of up to 100% of the report grade. If the
information comes from another student’s work, the grade for both the lender and the borrower
will be zero
 Allowing another student to copy one's work on an assignment.
 Submitting an essay from a past course. The grade of the report will be zero.
 Taking and using the words, work, or ideas of others and presenting any of these as one's work is
plagiarism. This applies to all work generated by another, whether oral, written, or artistic.
Plagiarism may be deliberate or unintentional, but it must be avoided. If the information is copied
verbatim from another source, the grade of that section will be zero.
 Using Artificial Intelligence to write, partially or totally, essay-type assignments. ChatGPT or any
other Artificial Intelligence (AI) software is considered plagiarism. If a student uses AI to write
their formal lab report, that section of the report will be graded very strictly.

All reports must be written in Word. Handwritten reports are NOT accepted. If you don’t have Microsoft
Word, you can obtain free access here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office.

Points are lost for not using correct and professional language, creating a neat, uniform, clean report,
and correctly formatting all equations/formulas.
 Always include a zero to the left of a decimal point (i.e., 0.78 instead of .78).
 Whenever you write chemical formulas, use Word's sub/superscript features (i.e., H +, SO4-2, H2O).
Highlight the number you want to change and click on one of the buttons shown below. Use this
feature to write numbers in scientific notation (i.e., 1.5×10-5).
To write all mathematical equations, you must use the Equation Editor included in Word—handwriting is
prohibited. To access it, click “Insert” on the main menu and then “Equation.” This app is self-
explanatory and relatively easy to use. Symbols can be inserted using the “Symbol” tool to the right of
the Equation Editor.

• For more information about how to enable/use the Equation Editor, click on the following links:
i. How to use the Equation Editor: (https://youtu.be/SRGaW3maK38)
ii. How to enable the Equation Editor: (https://www.technipages.com/word-enable-equation-editor)
iii. How to fix my Equation Editor if it is grayed out: (https://dummytech.com/2017/01/24/fixed-
equation-icon-is-grayed-out-in-ms-word/)

 Every section must be written in the past tense, except for the safety considerations and the
introduction, which should be written in the present tense. You may use first-person active voice (I,
we), third-person active voice (the student, the researcher, the group), or passive voice.

Do not use flowery language, no ellipses, no metaphors, no slang, no rhetorical questions, and no
exclamation points! Keep your report as bland as possible.
 Write your name here.

General Chemistry II - -CHEM 1412

Instructor: Dr. Rocio Doherty

Write the date here

 Write your title here.
The title of your report is the first thing the reader is exposed to. Therefore, it must describe your specific
goal in a few words!

To write the title, first, review your calculations and results; they will give you a clue about what the
primary goal of your experiment is. Then, explain this goal in a short and simple sentence using a few
keywords (titles are usually between 5 and 12 words.)

The title of a report should indicate precisely what you have studied. e.g., “The Effects of Light and
Temperature on the Growth of the Bacterium, Escherichia coli.” This title explains the environmental
factors manipulated (light and temperature), the parameter measured (growth), and the specific organism
used (E. coli). If many variables or organisms were used, the title could say “Several Factors...” or “Various
Chemicals....”

Ensure your title includes the research goal, the name of the chemical/reaction, and the specific
technique you are using. Do not include your results.

Abstract
The abstract is a condensed version of the entire lab report (approximately 250 words).
A reader uses the abstract to quickly understand your research's purpose, methods,
results, and significance without reading the entire paper. Abstracts or papers published
in scholarly journals are helpful when conducting library research because you can
quickly determine whether the research report will be relevant to your topic. The
material in the abstract is written in the same order as that within the paper and has the
same emphasis. An effective abstract should include a sentence or two summarizing the
highlights from each section: purpose, methods, results, and discussion. To reflect the
content (especially results and conclusions) of the paper accurately, the abstract should
be written after the final draft of your paper is complete. However, it is placed at the
beginning of the paper. Begin the abstract with a brief but specific background
statement to introduce your report. In summary,

State your primary purpose or objective. Describe the critical points of your
methodology (species/reagents/ingredients, the number of subjects or samples, and
techniques or instruments used to make measurements). Summarize the main results
numerically and qualitatively, and write your main conclusions, including the sources
of error.

Introduction

**Remember that ALL information within the report that is not your original work or ideas should be
referenced (even if not quoted directly but paraphrased or summarized – quotations are NOT used in
scientific writing.)

The introduction should identify the problem or issue and provide the background information (on
previous work and theories) the reader needs to understand your experiment. To do this, the introduction
contains a brief literature review to describe earlier research on the problem and explain how the current
experiment will help clarify or expand the knowledge.

**You MUST do some research outside your lab manual. If you only include the information from this
manual, your grade in this section will be zero.

Use resources such as your textbook, professional websites, and journal articles to build the foundation.
Use examples of similar experiments/results that others have done to support your hypothesis. Don’t
forget to document your sources using the appropriate referencing style (see the “Reference” section at
the end of this document).

The text should be written in paragraphs (a paragraph per bullet point) and have a good flow. Imagine that
you are giving a speech. How would you address the topics?

This part should include:

a) Definition of Rate of Reaction

b) Explanation of how the reactants' concentration affects the reaction rate – you can use
the Collision theory to support your explanation.
c) Representation of the rate of reaction by the Rate Law (include a general example using
the reaction: A + B  C). Define each variable present in the equation and give their units.
d) Explanation of the Method of Initial Rates. What type of data is needed? How do you use
this method to obtain the Rate Law (reaction order) from these data? Do NOT include
numeric examples of the calculations; only briefly explain the technique.
e) Theoretical “Rate vs Concentration” graphs for zero, first, and second-order reactions.
f) Iodine-Clock Reaction:
a) in general, what is a clock-reaction?
b) Write and explain the reaction mechanism. Include the chemical reactions that formed
the blue color.
c) Write the expected equation of the Rate Law for this specific reaction; remember to
mention that the sodium sulfite concentration (Na2SO3)was kept constant.
d) Expected order of reaction.
This text must contain in-text citations to all the material obtained from other sources - click here to
learn how to write in-text citations (https://www.mendeley.com/guides/apa-citation-guide).

Purpose

The purpose must contain information about the specific goals, how those goals will be achieved, and what
substances and conditions will be used. For example, “The purpose of this experiment is to use the integral
method to find the reaction order of the hydrolysis of cisplatin at room temperature and pH of 7.0.”
Safety

A laboratory report safety section will be brief but must be specific to that experiment. State which
substances were explosive, corrosive, toxic, etc., and which procedures had special precautions. The
chemical supply company provides information on chemical safety and material properties in their Safety
Data Sheets or SDS. You can find an example of this information in the SDS of the substance - click here to
find more about the SDS of chemicals (https://chemicalsafety.com/sds-search/). Also, include any waste
generation and disposal methods. In this experiment:

 KIO3 was used as the source of iodate, IO3-, ions.

 H2SO4 was used as the source of H+ ions. It created the acidic environment needed for the reaction.
 Na2SO3 was used as the source of SO32- ions.
 Starch was used as the indicator of the reaction

Procedure

In this section, you will describe how and when you did your work, including experimental design,
experimental apparatus, methods of gathering and analyzing data, and types of control.

Include complete details and write this section clearly enough to allow readers to duplicate the experiment
if they wish.

Write in past tense because you have already done the experiment. Use complete sentences, and do not
write in the form of instructions or as a list of materials as in a laboratory manual.

Use either first-person active voice or passive voice to describe what you did. For example,

 (first person active voice) I filled six petri plates with agar.

 (passive voice) Six petri plates were filled with agar.

Do NOT mention the video or the person who made it; instead, pretend it was YOU who experimented.
Exclude common-sense steps, such as labeling or recording data. Since your audience is the scientific
community, these steps are assumed to be a given. Make sure you specify the amounts of materials used.
Include any equipment used during your experiment. Do not forget about units, temperatures, times, etc.
If your procedure includes multiple tasks, consider making subheadings within the procedure.

Experimental data

All the measurements you made during the experiment must be reported in the experimental data section.
You should organize the data in tables and provide a description. Include units and use headings to clarify
the data.

Only experimental data (no calculations) must be included in this section.

Calculations

Explain the calculations you performed to obtain your results and show enough of the analysis process for
the calculations to make sense (include one example of each calculation type). Use the calculations you did
in your laboratory report as a guideline for what calculations to include.

Use the equation editor to write equations and formulas.

Results

The results section of a lab report is a very concise summary of what you obtained in the calculations. You
must include the experimental graphs, the experimental order of reaction, and the experimental equation
of the Rate law.

Discussion

The discussion part of this section is where you interpret your results and draw conclusions.

Explain what your Results mean. Describe patterns and relationships that emerged. Discuss why you
observed what you did, how it happened (or the most likely reason), and how it relates to the purpose of
the experiment. Compare these results to trends described in the literature and to theoretical behavior.
Support your interpretations with references included in the introduction section.

Continue to be descriptive. Readers may not read each result and jump to the discussion to find out why it
happened, so provide them with enough information to understand the discussion. When relevant, remind
the reader of your results without repeating endless details from the Results.

If you obtained poor results, the discussion section allows you to hypothesize why. Mentioning that the
experiment took too long, the temperature of the solutions (or the room) was not controlled, you made
errors in the calculations or measurements, the equipment must be failing or was not calibrated are not
valid sources of error and will be graded with zero points. Also, mentioning any conditions you cannot
prove, such as the temperature of the laboratory, the way the solutions were prepared, contaminated
substances, etc., will be graded with zero points.

This section shows your ability to think critically and creatively.

Conclusion

In any research paper, the conclusion connects the parts of the paper and completes the reasoning
process.

a) Write this section as a paragraph referring to the totality of the report, mainly the purpose, the
method used, expected and experimental results, analysis, and conclusions. Do not copy-paste all
the information; write only a summary of the essential points.

b) Compare your results to the expected values to determine whether the experiment succeeded.

c) Write at least one source of error (not a human mistake).

d) Write some recommendations for future researchers.

Citations and Bibliography

This paper must be written in your own words. Copying someone else’s work, even if you include that work
in your bibliography, is plagiarism.

Scientific lab reports are written for the sole purpose of sharing information. If readers want more
information about something, they need to be able to find the exact place it was originally written in.
References also credit the person who did the work and provides your work with authority.

Include a list of the sources you used to write your document. Ensure these references are included in the
rest of the report as in-text citations. Remember that ALL information within the report that is not your
original work or ideas should be referenced (even if not quoted directly but paraphrased or summarized –
quotations are NOT used in scientific writing.)

Click here to learn (https://www.mendeley.com/guides/apa-citation-guide).

Your sources must be trustworthy. Do not use encyclopedias like Wikipedia or commercial tutoring sites
like your laboratory manual, SparkNotes, or Khan Academy. Sources like these are appealing because they
are easy to find and understand. However, they are summaries of the work of many other writers, so when
you cite authors of these articles, you are not citing the actual expert. As a rule, please avoid using any
source unless it has a specific, identifiable author/editor, has been published in a credible work or
institution, or is part of a collection of authoritative information.

Examples of appropriate sources are:

 Your textbook and other chemistry books with a primary author/editor,

 Scientific journals,
 Webpages hosted by organizations that one can reasonably consider to be authorities, such as
university chemistry departments, NASA, and CERN; and
 Databases curated by official organizations, such as the NIST Chemistry Webbook, the IUPAC
“Gold Book,” or the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.