The Following Format Is Expected For All Chemistry 11 Labs:
* Each of the following sections must be present, in the correct order, and have a section heading like you see below
* Labs are written in third person impersonal (ie: people are removed from the report – “it was found that..”, not “we found that…”)
Title: must be descriptive for the WHOLE lab. Be especially careful when you are doing labs with many sections or combining 2 labs. The title must fit all parts (it may be general – what do they have in common?).
Purpose: answers the question, “What are we trying to find out?” If the lab has multiple purposes, combine them or pick the most important so as to try to get it into one sentence.
Procedure: all you have to do is refer to where you got the procedure. If it’s a handout, say, “Please refer to ……. handout". If it is from our lab book, the “Please refer to….” Is followed by a full works cited-type reference.
Data and Observations: everything in this section MUST be in tables that were created with a ruler. Each table must have a table number and a descriptive title (Ex: Table 1: Observations for a single replacement reaction). All data tables from all parts of the lab go together in this section.
Stuff in these tables are things you see, hear, or smell, or measurements or simple subtraction answers. NO calculated data or things that you have to think about.
Questions/Calculations: assigned questions or calculations go here and must be in complete sentences unless you are writing the question out again. I should not have to look it up to see what question you are trying to answer. All Calculations should have a number and a title (ex: Calculation #1: Density of Solution A).
Results: everything in this section must be in rulered tables and each table must have a number and descriptive title. Results tables differ from data tables in that they contain information that you had to think about (what do the observations you made mean) or calculate. The tables contain the answer to what you are trying to find out. For example: Data table ® fizzing, heat given off, went from clear to blue; Results table® chemical reaction took place.
Conclusion: this should only be a sentence or two and answers the purpose in past tense. It can be very general (Ex: A variety of chemical reactions were observed) or it may contain a value (Ex: the density was found to be 2.30 g/mL). It will depend on what the purpose of the lab was. If you are trying to identify unknowns, their identities should be listed here.