Chem Lab Report
hi so as we all know being overwhelmed is a typical part of the life of an engineering student I mean you get calculus and other engineering subjects those are not quite easy after that that you have to write tons of lab reports well the good news is that we’re here to help we already produced calculus videos and also chemistry 107 videos and these can be found on our Channel Oasis 101 also other subjects such as physics are on the way and they’re in the making as a continuation of a chemistry help we are going to show you how to write useful and professional chemistry lab reports and by the way the guidelines are going to show you can be used for any lab report with minor changes depending on the subject so first of all keep in mind that the number one rule in running a successful lab report is to know everything that happens in the lab session please take know of everything observations equipments used measured quantities or whatever also don’t forget that you have to note down your partner’s name so let’s get going well first of all let’s talk about the main components of a lab report first of all you need a title page then you’re gonna need an abstract a results section a discussion / conclusion section and finally you’re gonna need the calculations section which can be added to the appendix if you have an appendix or it can be our separate section as it is for the talent page section you need to write the experiment number on the top of the page then you have to write your name obviously and then the turnin date and then finally your partner’s name that is it for the title page sometimes professors might ask you to write your UI n or your signature but for the chemistry lab report at this point you don’t need to do that so that’s it for the title page basically so an external list is the abstract think of the abstract as a summary of the report it tells what is the report about the abstract should include the purpose of the experiment and you can say that plural a bar saying the abstract of this experiment is or you can be creative and then next it contains a brief procedure of how you perform the experiment please do not be very detailed in this as you’re gonna explain it more in the results section the most important results should also be included and the significance of the experiment by giving a real-life application of where the experiment can be applied keep in mind that your abstract should be one to two paragraphs only so moving on to our next component of a lab report which is the results section and by the way it is the biggest section of any lab report it’s also the most tedious sometimes I should continue with data gathered in the lab session and it also should contain any graphs or tables that were derived using the raw data please do not forget keep this in mind guys when you put these tables and graphs do not forget to refer them in the paragraph before the table graph and also put titles on them do not just leave flying tables and graphs without being referred or without titles this keeps the reader lost also do not forget to write down the detailed procedure of how you got the results and data and the tables finally restate the important results and words again moving on to the discussions conclusion section now keep in mind this is the most important section because it presents your understanding of the experiment it shows that you actually know what you’re doing not just placing numbers in tables and graphs and following orders in the lab it should contain answers to discussion questions at the end of each experiment in the lab manual now keep in mind that when you answer these questions answer them in continuous paragraphs not bullet points and please do not rewrite the questions again it should also contain an error analysis paragraph which explains the possible reasons of error and different data and how to improve the results in the future finally restate the significance of the experiment by giving a real-life example and this could be the same example you gave in the abstract and now we have finally reached the calculations section in this section it should be the simplest section of your lab report it includes sample calculations by which I mean put one sample of each calculation you did so if you did ten additions please only put one addition process do not put the ten it’s gonna be tedious and painful for the grader also show the formulas that you used so if you added masses please say that mass equals mass 1 plus mass 2 in text and then do the calculations and numbers below and finally label the calculations so say what each of these calculations is you for so for example say for using for finding the total mass if we say that mass total is equal to mass 1 + ms 2 and then write 5 equals 2 + 3 or whatever so now we’re done with all the components of a lab report we know what each section contains and how it is organized so what could possibly go wrong well let’s see what are some of the common mistakes when writing a lab report and by the way I’m gonna list them an order of occurrence so the first common mistake is submitting a lab report with an unprofessional title page and this is because the title page might be unorganized things are in order text is unaligned and this could give a really bad impression about your lab report even before the grader sees the results and abstracts and discussion of the lab report and actually you want it to look professional because if your lab report today you’re submitting a lab report to our teacher tomorrow you gonna be submitting it to your boss the second mistake and line is the long abstract some people write their life stories in the abstract and fill it with long explanations and procedures please make it brief and short and precede the abstract basically tells the reader what is that I’m about and the reader is not at that point interested about understanding the whole experiment third problem is unitless numbers and if you write a mass of 4.5 you need to mention whether it was grams milligrams kilograms or whatever because this says a lot about the data makes a difference then we have excessive units and by this I mean that you put units in each table you should write the unit’s on top of the table for each column but you do not have to mention these units in each row of the table for each data point first problem is untitled figures and graphs and these sometimes are not referred please refer them before you put the figure and also put a title on the figure or a graph that you mentioned this keeps the reader engaged and you don’t have like flying graphs everywhere next we have bullet point discussion answers I already warned about this point when you’re answering the discussion questions please do not put them in bullet points make them in continuous paragraphs be creative and answering these questions and making them in a full readable text next in line will have excessive calculations and this in the calculations section a lot of people when they put the calculations they put every single calculation even if it was repeated and this is tedious please put one sample of each calculation you put finally we have the problem of leaving no references if use any reference that is a website a book the lab manual please put that in reference section this could get you in a serious trouble with plagiarism if you do not put these references I know it sounds straightforward but please a lot of people forget this it’s it’s so simple just whenever you use something just put that in there put it in the correct form APA or MLA style depends on what the lab TAS for please put references and save yourself the problems I hope this helps you write a professional lab report I hope I’d not miss some points these are general comments a lot of people might have different opinions in this but I think you should be doing fine at least for the chemistry 117 course thank you for watching have a great day