Laboratory Safety:

You must complete a Chemistry Department Laboratory Safety Tour before you can begin work in the Open laboratory. You must also read and sign the Department's safety policies sheet, titled "Laboratory Safety", and turn it in at the Stockroom at the end of your safety tour.

• Be sure to read pp. 5-21 of Pavia, et al, regarding safety precautions that must be taken in the laboratory.
• Goggles are required at all times in the laboratory.
• Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) are available at the north end of the Open Lab and should be consulted during the preparation of your prelab report for information about the hazards and properties of the chemicals you will use.
• Disposable gloves are available at the Stockroom window. Be sure to remove them before handling any communal items such as balances, reagent bottles, pipets, telephones, door knobs, etc., or you will contaminate the items you touch and make it unsafe for others not wearing gloves.
• It is advised that you not wear contact lenses in chemical laboratories.

The Lab Notebook:

• The notebook specified for this course is designed to make carbon-less form copies of your notes. Use your notebook for recording ALL of your work in the laboratory.
• Use indelible ink for all notebook entries. Pencil or water soluble inks are not acceptible.
• Scraps of paper or notes written on loose paper are not acceptable. Faculty in the Open Lab have been instructed to confiscate any notes not written in the specified bound notebook.
• Use the back side (left side) of your notebook pages for writing scratch notes and preliminary calculations, etc. (e.g. tare weights, etc.), whenever the need arises.
• Set aside the first several pages of your notebook to keep a running Table of Contents. Add an entry to the Table of Contents each time you perform an experiment, noting the relevant pages.
• Set aside another several pages immediately following the Table of Contents titled Safety and Hazard Information for notes about frequently-used chemicals (e.g. solvents) and procedures that are common or will likely be used more than once. The first time you use a frequently-encountered chemical or do a procedure that you will likely repeat, and it has a hazard or safety concern, make a note in these preliminary pages. Then, in the Hazards section of your prelab for each experiment (described below) you can simply reference the Safety and Hazard Information page for information you have already written about that substance or procedure, rather than writing some of the same information over and over again each week.
• Set aside one or two pages following the Safety and Hazard Information pages for a page titled List of Abbreviations. Each time you use a new abbreviation for a chemical, process, etc., add it to the List of Abbreviations page.
Any errors that are made in the notebook should be crossed out by a single line. Errors should not be obliterated by erasing, drawing over, or covering with White-Out. Occasionally what was considered to be an erroneous entry turns out to be correct or valuable and is needed at some later date.
• The prelab portion of your report (specified below) must be completed and initialed by the Open Lab instructor before you can check equipment out of the stockroom and begin work.

Format for Lab Notes:

Prelab Portion
Date Title Reference (e.g., Pavia et al., Exp. X, pp. YY-ZZ) Goal or Purpose (brief) Main Reaction [balanced equation(s), including likely side reactions] (Note that this section might not be appropriate for non-preparative experiments.) Table of Relevant Physical Constants or "Reaction Table" Format - MW, mp or bp, density (for liquids), planned weights and moles, actual amounts and moles (filled in after experiment is begun), and ratio of molar equivalents. Separation Scheme (Usually a flow chart - not a written duplicate of the planned lab procedure copied from the book. - Be concise but complete.) HAZARDS (of the chemicals and/or the procedures) In addition to the lab manual, you will need to consult the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS's) available in the Open Lab. Recurring hazards and safety considerations can be documented once in the preliminary notebook pages described above, and simply referenced in the prelab as being noted there. [All of the above sections must be entered in your notebook and initialed by the instructor on duty before the Stockroom will be allowed to issue you your equipment.]
In-lab Portion
In-lab Notes, Data, and Observations - Written continuously during the lab period documenting your work in your notebook as you do the work, not at some later time or date. Your notes should be sufficient for someone else to duplicate your work, though not necessarily written in perfect prose. Calculations Conclusions - Brief statement or restatement of key results and conclusions. Editorial comments such as "I think the experiment went well.", etc., are not appropriate. Date of Completion Your Signature

Notebook Spot Checks

The Formal Report

• Groups of four individuals will collaborate to prepare a single formal report. Experimental data and results will be pooled from within the group to build a substantial work.
• The formal report may be written about a single experiment conducted thus far during the semester. In order to ensure diversity of selected experiments, groups will sign up to write about an experiment on a posted sign-up sheet listing the experiments.
• The formal report is to take the form of a paper to be submitted for publication in a journal of the American Chemical Society, e.g. the Journal of Organic Chemistry.
• The paper should include the following sections:
  Title
  Authors Names
  Affiliation (Course and Institution address)
  Abstract
  Introduction
  Results and Discussion
  Experimental Section
  Literature References

A sample of a published paper will be provided illustrating the prescribed layout and style for your paper.

Group Structure

The four individuals in the group should each take responsibility for one of the following portions of the paper, and then work together to make the paper a cohesive, well-written whole.

The grade for each member of the group will be strongly influenced by the contribution of all the group members, as follows. 80% of the grade for the paper will be the same for all members of the group. Each of the four sections delineated below will be worth 20 points and the score for each section will be summed to achieve 80% of the total. The remaining 20 points of each individual's total score (out of a possible 100) will be calculated by adding again the score for their individual section of the paper.

Collaboration within the group is strongly encouraged, indeed essential. The fundamental thrust of the paper should be agreed upon initially by the group as a whole and relevant data shared. Then, individual group members should prepare drafts of their specific section of the paper. Drafts should then be shared within the group and constructive feedback returned in a timely fashion to the author of each section. All group members should assist with critiquing all sections of the paper. The author of each section should revise their drafts as appropriate, and again solicit feedback from the group. The group should then polish the assembled sections into a finished, very high quality paper, again working through multiple drafts when necessary.

Expectations for the finished paper are very high both in terms of the quality of writing and the level of scientific analysis and literature documentation. You are encouraged to use the library and all other resources available.

The formal report should be typed, double-spaced, and approximately 4-10 pages in length. Be concise, complete, and sure that the paper reads in a logical progression of topics and information.

Laboratory Final Exam

Grading

Copyright 1996, Craig B. Fryhle