The goal of writing a lab report is to communicate your findings in a concise, thorough, and thought-out, manner, which clearly demonstrates the meaning of what you did in the laboratory. If in doubt, ask someone in your group or someone from the teaching team to clarify concepts to you. You won't receive a grade on these reports, but your mentor will give you feedback on how to present the results of an experiment or research project in writing, how to accurately explain the theory behind an experiment, how to interpret and draw conclusions from your data, and on scientific writing in general. Communication is perhaps the most important part of doing science, and this feedback should be extremely useful to you when you enter college.

The information in the lab report will be distributed by sections, which include Title, Abstract, Introduction, Experimental Method, Data and Results, Discussion and Conclusions, and References.

When all sections of the report are completed to your satisfaction, write an abstract of no more than 120 words summarizing the report. Ideally, the abstract should have one sentence per section to highlight the main points of the report. Address the research questions and summarize the results/findings of the experiment. The Title Page should contain the title of the experiment, the abstract, the name of the members in the group, the date the experiment was performed, and the date the report was submitted.

Explain the theory behind the experiment as if you were describing it to someone in our class who hasn't yet done the experiment, e.g., if you were writing an individual report for experiment 1, you would define accuracy, precision, and standard deviation, but you can assume that the reader knows what an Erlenmeyer flask is. Include references for all sources consulted.

Indicate specific details of the apparatus used [e.g., "A Matson Galaxy FT-IR spectrometer equipped with a DTGS (deuterated triglycine sulfate) detector with optimal optical path difference (OPD) resolution of 1.0 cm^-1 was used to collect the infrared spectra of the reaction products and starting materials"]; the physical properties of chemicals used, the number of runs, the experimental conditions (concentration range(s), temperature, pressure, and other experimental variables of relevance). Mention any modification from the procedure described in the lab manual.

Tabulate all data used in the calculation of results, number the tables, and title them properly. Perform error analysis of your data. Provide one sample calculation for the results and the associated uncertainty and then tabulate the rest. Use a different numbering pattern for tables, figures, graphs and equations. Describe how you calculated the results using the proper units and significant figures.

Figures and tables can either be distributed throughout your report, or included seprately at the end. A figure or table must be centered, and it has to have a legend that includes a title and a short description of what it's showing. For example:

If you include the figures and tables at the end of the report, put only one figure or table per page (centered on the page).

The purpose of the discussion is to expand on your observations or to comment on possible causes of poor results. Make a quantitative comparison of your results with literature values; based on this, evaluate the experiment's accuracy and precision. Answer any questions given at the end of the experiment. Summarize the main conclusions and results.

Bibliographic styles depend on the journal that has defined the bibliographic format; the following citation norms pertain to the Journal of Physical Chemistry. Notice that in this format you are to number the citations along the text and present a list of the references at the end of the report as exemplified below.

a. Citing an article:

b. Citing a book:

c. Citing a chapter in a book of several authors:

To facilitate handling bibliographic files you should download the EndNote bibliographic software, which is available for downloading, free of charge, to all current students, faculty and staff of Columbia University from the AcIS software server.

In order to better organize your report, you can use the templates provided by the American Chemical Society. This site corresponds to the Journal of Physical Chemistry template.