CHM 205 Lab Report Guidelines All portions of the laboratory report must be typed and all graphs

can be plotted using excel or they can be hand drawn (you may also use LoggerPro if you are able). Prelab Exercise must be written in your laboratory manual and will be part of your overall lab report grading and must be fully prepared prior to the beginning of the experiment. The lab report will be written in double spaced with a 0pt paragraph spacing. Margins will be one inch from the top, bottom, left and right sides of the paper. The font can be either Calibri (Body) or Times New Roman and 11 pt font. 1. Title Page (Separate Page, place all words in the middle, center of the page)
a. b. c. d. e. full name lab section title of the experiment date lab partners name

2. Introduction (At least a page) a. Introduction detailing the experiments background, theory and
usefulness in science along with any details that will be pertinent to reading the lab reports including equations and constants and why one would use these equations in the report. These must be properly labeled so please refer to the uploaded sample lab reports to get specific details of scientific style.

3. Procedure 4. Data

a. Paragraph form which is written in the third person and past tense a. All tables and figures in the results section must be properly labeled and include a brief description of what the table or figure represents so please refer to the uploaded documents for examples. b. Qualitative observations regarding reaction c. Reagent characteristics (m.p, b.p., density, etc) d. The results section is however long as it has to be since each lab will have different sets of results

5. Discussion (At least a page) a. Details the experimental results and analyzes the data obtained. b. Explanation of experimental error.
c. Deviations from theoretical yield or experimental observations should also be noted in this section. d. Error: i. Systematic Error equipment problems, environmental factors, procedural difficulties. ii. Non-systematic Error Spillage, incorrect measurement of reagents, and other non-standard experimental techniques.

6. Conclusion
a. Should only need to be a paragraph long, no longer than a half a page please, which sums up the experiment.

b. This section will give data which the writer wants the reader to take
away from the experiment

7. References
a. Referencing should be included throughout the lab report and be notated as a superscript of the number which you are citing in the reference section. b. References should be rephrased parts from your reference material and not direct quotes c. MLA format so please refer to the uploaded documents for details. d. Your laboratory manual can also be a reference along with outside sources.