Cannizzaro’s reaction

Your course name

You can use this template for writing your reports. Any lines highlighted in grey must be replaced by your text. Anything in green must be deleted. Save your file according to the following naming protocol:

“firstname_lastname_Report#_course#_Date”

Upload a PDF copy of your lab report file on Canvas before the due date.

Abstract

[Here you will write an abstract. The abstract is a brief summation of the experiment. It should not exceed 100 words and should explain, in a concise manner, the purpose of the experiment, how the experiment was conducted, and the results gained. Any conclusions gained from the experiment should also be summarized within this section.

Introduction

The introduction provides background information about the experiment. This includes the purpose behind the experiment, research that already exists and pertains to the experiment, and why the experiment was performed. This is the section in which your hypothesis and a summary of the experimental method should also be included.

Experimental

You do not need to re-type the whole procedure and all the steps and details from the manual. Only provide a summary and then just put a reference to the procedure in the lab manual. If you have changed anything in the lab manual procedure, you need to mention them here. The Experimental section must be written in the passive voice and the past tense.

Table 1:List of Reagents:

Results

Here describe your raw and processed results. You should not add any discussions or conclusions in this part. Data and numerical results especially should be in tabulated format. Make sure you show the proper number of significant figures.

Sample Calculation:

Here you will type out your calculations. The required calculation and data treatment for each report can be found at the end of each experiment in the lab manual. Make sure to watch your significant figures. When you have several trials or data for several compounds you need only show one sample calculationfor one trial or one compound.

Discussions

This is where you discuss your results. This should be in paragraph form, and probably around 1 page, depending on the experiment (it does not need to be more than 1.5 or 2 pages long). This is the place where you can really show you understood what you did in lab and did not just follow the procedure and write down numbers. This section consists of essentially three paragraphs. It should not include “I”, “we”, “my”, etc. In other words you shouldn’t have something like “I mixed the two solutions and a precipitate formed”. Instead it should be something like “The two solutions were mixed and a precipitate formed,” or, “A precipitate formed upon mixing of the solutions.” This should include facts without a lot of “feelings” (such as “This was a fun lab and I learned a lot”).

The first paragraph should include a synopsis of the experiment. There shouldn’t be a lot of experimental detail but enough of a description so someone reading it would get the idea of what was done and what the experiment was about.

The second paragraph consists of your final important results (not all the intermediate results) and a discussion of those results. Are the results correct or reasonable (do they make sense, e.g. if you get a molecular weight of 10,000 g/mol that is not reasonable)? How do you know? For some experiments you should state whether you got the correct trends and how you know this. If you did not get the correct results, what would you have expected and why? Include an explanation of your results based on what you have learned in the manual, lab and lecture.

The third paragraph should consist of any problems encountered during the lab or after and state any possible sources of error which may have caused inaccuracies in the results and how to minimize or correct them.  They should be specific. You should include at least two inherent sources of error. Inherent errors are errors over which you have little to no control due to the way the experiment was performed.  It should not just be things like “The equipment was bad,” or “The chemicals provided were not pure or the correct concentrations.” Those are just unreasonable excuses which do not require a lot of thought. Only discuss instrumental errors which would affect the significant figures and accuracy of the final results. You should discuss accuracy and precision and how they affect the results. You should describe how the errors might affect the results and how they might be overcome. If you leave a data point off a graph, you should explain why you did not use it. If you are taking an average of values and you leave a trial out because it is very different than the others, you should note this on the report form and explain it in this paragraph.

Conclusion

This is a summary (1 paragraph, about 5-6 sentences) of the entire experiment. This should include a brief description of the lab (1-2 sentences), your main results (actual numbers when appropriate) and answer the purpose (restate the purpose first, in past tense). Be sure to always answer the purpose. You should include what conclusion you have drawn based on the results.

Questions

There are also a few post-lab questions for each experiment. You must provide your answers to those questions on your lab report.

1. Answer to question 1.
2. Answer to question 2.

References

You need to cite all your references according to the American Chemistry Society. See the citation info sheet for instructions. You must have at least two references.

1)

2)

3)