May 2009
Guidelines for Lab Report: Acid/Base Indicators
Your lab report needs to have a title and needs to be organized into the following sections:
Title
Introduction
Material and Methods
Results
Discussion
References
N.B. An Abstract is not required for this particular Lab Report.
General Comments:
 Keep your writing impersonal; use third person past tense. Avoid using I and We
 Pay attention to grammar and punctuation and divide paragraphs correctly.
Some Suggestions for the Introduction:


What knowledge already exists about this subject, and what needs to be addressed in
order to understand the rest of the report (What is an acid? What are some properties of
acids? What is a base? What are some properties of bases? What is the pH scale? (Be
sure to discuss this in detail- not just what it measures, but also the range of the scale and
where those numbers come from). What is an acid-base indicator? Give some examples.
Mention the two reactions that we learned about: neutralization reactions & acids reacting
with metals.
State the objectives or purpose of the experiment.
Material and Method:
 This section is to be written in paragraph form
 Briefly describe the experimental procedure and equipment that you used.
Results:
 Two tables: Table 1 showing the colors that each solution turned with each pH indicator;
Table 2 showing metals (Mg & Cu), your hypothesis re: whether or not the reaction will
occur; and your observations
Some suggestions for the Discussion
 Include an interpretation of your results. For part 1: What information did you get from the
indicators? Compare/contrast the indicators. Give examples of when each indicator might be the
best one to use. For part 2: Indicate what your hypotheses were and how you determined them.
Indicate whether or not your hypotheses were proven, and explain how your data shows this.
What were the products of the reaction that did occur?
 Were the objectives of the experiment met?
References
List all your resources (books used, data tables, web sites consulted) that you used in writing the
introduction and discussion and cite your references using the APA guidelines