January 26, 11 1 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

January 26, 11 2 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Introduction

The laboratory notebook is perhaps the single most important piece of laboratory equipment. A scientist’s notebook may be directly entered as evidence in court, and as such may be worth millions to a company in patent litigation. Although your notebook is not worth millions in this course, it can mean the difference between a D and a C grade. Good record keeping is essential in all scientific work. In an academic laboratory, the consequences of poor record keeping are wasted time as you repeat the experiment, or simply fail the exercise. In an industrial laboratory, inadequate lab records ultimately cost the company money, either in the cost of time and materials or as the result of legal action. In either case, the cost to the responsible employee is their job and all possible future employment. Thus, adequate record keeping will be stressed in all chemistry laboratories and especially in this course.

January 26, 11 3 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

January 26, 11 4 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

General Guide to keeping a lab notebook-

• Save at least the first 4 pages for the Table of Content.

• All written work MUST be done in the notebook, never in notebook paper or

scratch pieces of paper • All work must be written in black or blue ink. Never use a pencil to make entries

in your lab notebook

• Never erase, white-out entries or tear pages from the lab notebook.

• Turn in the original copy to your instructor.

January 26, 11 5 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Heading Format

Heading should be completed on each page.

A descriptive title of the experiment.

The experiment number. Your complete name.

The date the page was complete.

Lab partner(s) or others who contributed to the data of that page.

If data was collected, the witness box should be filled.

January 26, 11 6 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Objective The objective should be concise to the point but provide enough details to inform the reader about the scope of the experiment.

January 26, 11 7 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Background The background information should be written so that someone with adequate background will be able to understand the scope of the experiment and the findings of the results. All equations to be used, data to be collected, graphs to be generated should be explained in this section. This section should address what system is to be studied, i.e., chemical reactions. How the experiment is to be conducted, i.e., methodology. The data that is to be collected and how meaning is to be derived from the data. Finally this portion of the lab should address address the objective of the experiment.

January 26, 11 8 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Procedure Enough steps should be provided so that the procedural steps can be followed. This section should not a verbatim account of the step-by-step account of what is written in the procedural step. Nor is it simply a reference of where to find the procedural step. Rather it is an outline of the step woven in procedural pictorial flowchart scheme. In key each step, chemicals and and its concentration should be indicated as well as what data is to be collected during that step. Finally, a sample data table should be added at the end to indicate the key data to be collected for the experiment.

January 26, 11 9 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Safety and Disposal Information- Safety is of paramount importance in the chemical laboratory. In order to raise awareness of any hazards associated with the chemicals or procedures used in the experiments, warnings should be written in the lab notebook. Similarly in order to be environmentally conscious chemical material used should not be released to the environment, i.e. poured down the drain. Whenever possible, Green Chemistry should be practice through out this course. Review the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry at http://www.epa.gov/gcc/pubs/principles.html. In each experiment, you will be given directed instructions on the proper method to dispose of chemical waste. If you are unsure about the correct disposal procedure, ask your instructor or lab technician for guidance.

January 26, 11 10 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Post Lab Questions The last part of this section is the prelab questions. Do not write the answers for these questions in your background narrative, instead, write out a separate section and answer with the question embedded in your answer. For example if the question is "Why is it necessary to standardize the titrant before the titration experiment"? An appropriate answer would be, "In this experiment, it is necessary to standardize the titrant with KHP in order to know the precise concentration so that the equivalent number of moles of the titrant can be used to analyze the analyte". Notice how the question is embedded in the answer (in italics). Finally, be sure your answer is complete. If you do not fully answer the question, you will not receive credit. .

January 26, 11 11 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Data and Observations- The data / observations section is completed when carrying out the experimental procedure. The written narrative should be detailed enough that someone else could repeat the experiment simply by reading the notes. In general it is always a good idea to record more details than too few details. Important items to notice are the color changes, gas evolution, experimental difficulties, etc., that occurred during an experimental procedure. As the experiment is being conducted observations and numerical results (data) should be entered directly in the lab notebook at the moment the data is collected and not a minute later. Raw data should never be written on paper other than the lab notebook. That means the data should not be written on the lab manual or textbook. There is a 5pt penalty for each time this rule is violated. Data should always be entered in the lab notebook. The data should be organized into tables in a logical fashion so that they are easily found when needed for calculations. Numerical data should be recorded with the correct units and precision. Try to keep attachment or computer printout to one page and attach to the notebook via clear tape (no staple). A description of the attachment should be entered in the lab notebook.

January 26, 11 12 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Results and Calculation- In this section the data collected are manipulated in order to obtain the answers to the question posed in the objective. First organize your raw data such that the information needed to calculate the results are organized in a data summary table. Next write down key equations or provide an example of the formulas that will be used to transform the raw data to meaningful results. A complete sample calculation should show how the raw data is used in your calculation. If you are using excel to do the bulk of the calculations, show the layout of the excel spreadsheet and the formulas for important cells in the spreadsheet. Statistical analysis of the results need to be describe and formulas provided. If you are using excel for the statistical analysis, include the statistical function that is used in your description of how the values were obtained. If graphs are generated, be sure to have a title of the graph and the axis properly labeled. A legend should include the meaning of the data points. If LINEST is used for the linear regression, the complete 3x6 matrix (with labels) should be part of the graph and in the result table. A clear, organize, delineation of raw data to results (including statistics) must be presented in this section. Finally, you should take the final results and present it in an organized table, high lighting the final numbers as requested in the lab write-up directions for that experiment. In other words, the final results should be summarized in a very organize “Table of Results”.

January 26, 11 13 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Discussion and Conclusion- The discussion should speculate on the significance of the results that was found in the Results/Calculation section. The discussion should also address if the results are what is expected or if an unexpected results was discovered. Finally the statistical analysis should also be addressed in this section, i.e., state what part of the experimental procedure introduce the greatest error and comment on how the errors (including any errors you made personally) affected the experimental result.

The conclusion section should simply state the final result, which pertains to the goal of the experiment.

January 26, 11 14 The Lb Notebook and Writeup

Post Lab Questions- This should be written in its own section and not included as part of the discussion section. As in the prelab question section, you should give an answer that has the question embedded in the answer. See the pre-lab question section above for more information on how to complete this.

January 26, 11 15 The Lb Notebook and Writeup