CHEM 3152
Fall 2007
Organic Chemistry Laboratory
Laboratory Notebook Guidelines
Keeping a detailed and reliable laboratory notebook is an essential skill to all scientists,
engineers, and science related professionals. Recording the data, observations, and procedures from
an experiment is important in developing reports, writing journal articles, and defending patents.
The steps that are outlined below are very similar if not the same to what will be expected of a
scientist or professional. Before an experiment can be started, there is often hours if not weeks of
background research to develop the procedure and to formulate expected outcomes of the
experiment. Then detailed notes, calculations, and observations are made during the experiment
that are then signed, dated, and counter signed to authenticate the notebook entries on a daily basis.
And finally, the investigator writes a conclusion or discussion to complete the experiment and help
guide further investigations.
The following is the guideline for the laboratory notebook in Organic Chemistry Lab. It
closely resembles what would be expected in a research laboratory in a scientific field. The amount
of each portion is worth is listed by experiment on the rubric table that follows. There are many
references that can provide assistance to producing a quality laboratory notebook. Some of these
references are listed below.
Pre-Lab:
The pre-lab should be complete before the student comes to the lab. This will take some
time and effort. It is important that each student understand the background, the safety concerns,
and procedure to each experiment. Not having a grasp of the experiment well before attending the
lab will increase the time it will take to complete the lab and decrease the safety of each student in
the lab. If the pre-lab is not complete by the beginning of the lab period, the student will lose all the
points for the pre-lab for that experiment.
The pre-lab consists of:
Heading: Title of the Experiment, Date, Name, Locker #, Course & Section #
Objective: The purpose of the experiment. This could be to learn a new technique, to elucidate
a reaction mechanism, or synthesize a compound.
Techniques & Reactions: A list of the techniques and/or reactions to be preformed in the
experiment. All reactions should be complete balanced chemical equations
indicating all of the reactants, products, catalysts, solvents, and reaction conditions.
Physical Data Table: A well-organized table of physical data and safety considerations. Should
include compound, molecular weight, melting point, boiling point, density, and
safety information.
Procedure: Brief procedure that will allow the student to run the experiment with out referring to
the lab manual. This procedure needs to contain all of the information (weight,
volumes…) to perform the experiment, but should not be a copy of the literature or
lab manual procedure or be in complete sentences. Writing the procedure on the left
side column of the lab notebook will allow for observations and data to be written on
the right side column that correlate to each step in the procedure.
CHEM 3152
Fall 2007
Lab Documentation & Observations:
During the experiment, all of the data, observations, quantities, and calculations related to
the experiment should be recorded in the laboratory notebook. There is a great deal of information
that needs to be recorded in a timely fashion so that a detailed report could be written with out
relying on ones memory and so that another investigator could repeat the experiment in the future.
It is bad practice to make notes of actual weights, volume measurements, or determinations of
physical properties on scraps of paper. This portion of the lab notebook should be legible and
organized but is not meant to be refined, but should be a rough transcript of the lab experiment.
Post-Lab:
Once the reactions and purification are complete, the experiment is still not complete. The
data collected and observations made must be analyzed and evaluated. The post-lab write up should
be completed at the end of lab if at all possible so that the lab notebook copy pages can be
submitted to the TA. If spectra have to be obtained after the lab time, this may not be possible and
the post-lab can be completed when the spectra data is available.
The post-lab consists of:
Results: This should include all pertinent calculations and data as well as a brief comment on
these results.
Spectral Analysis: The interpretation of the spectral or analytical data such as IR, NMR, and
GC. The data should be analyzed to a significant degree to provide evidence of the
identity and purity of the products.
Conclusion and Discussion: This portion of the lab notebook is for the student to demonstrate
their understanding of what happened in the experiment. It is important to think
about what was the expected outcome of the experiment, what could explain the
differences between the expectations and the actual result, what did you learn about
the techniques and reactions, how could your results be improved, and what did you
learn about chemistry from this experiment.
Benchmark:
It is important to be thorough and deliberate while performing the experiments in the lab. It
is not enough to just be present and go through the motions. Therefore, a reasonable result, a
benchmark, for each experiment will be set that the student is expected to meet to receive the full
credit for the benchmark portion of the lab notebook grade. These will most often be a quantity of
the product with a certain purity and be based on previous and expected results of the experiment
performed by a sophomore level Organic Chemistry Laboratory student. The benchmark is worth
approximately 10% of the lab notebook grade. The Teaching Assistants will randomly check the
products to verify the reported data in the laboratory notebook to validate the benchmark grade. If
data is falsified in the laboratory notebook, the student may receive a zero for that lab notebook
grade. Honest reporting of data is essential to keeping a professional laboratory notebook.
Signature:
The signature consists of being signed in and out of the lab. The teaching assistant will scan
the pre-lab in each student’s lab notebook at the beginning of class and initial the notebook page
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CHEM 3152
Fall 2007
directly under the pre-lab. If a student does not have the pre-lab complete, the TA will not sign the
student “in” to the lab and the student will not receive any points for the pre-lab portion of the
experiment.
Once the experiment is completed, the student should sign and date the notebook at the end
of the days work. Once the TA has checked the student’s work area and scanned the laboratory
notebook, the TA will sign the notebook page next to the student’s signature. With out this
signature, the student will not receive any points for the signature portion of the laboratory
notebook grade.
Details:
There are several details that make the difference between poor laboratory notebook keeping
and proper notebook keeping. Of these are using pen that does not smug or bleed easily, formatting
the notebook so that information can be understood in a timely manner, writing legibly, and
correcting errors by marking through them with one line and initialing the change. These are
important details and are therefore part of the grade for the laboratory notebook.
Rubric for Experiments
Experiment
Simple Distillation
Fractional Distillation
Isomerization/TLC
Extraction of Nutmeg
Fermentation/Distillation
Isolation of Caffeine
Diels-Alder Reaction
Friedel-Crafts Acetylation
Hydroboration/Oxidation
CrO3 Oxidation
Williamson Ether Synth.
NaBH4 Reduction
Grignard Reaction
Multi-step – 14A
Multi-step – 14B
Multi-step – 14C
Multi-step – 14D
Wittig Reaction
Acetanilide
Pre-lab
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
Lab
8
16
8
8
8
16
8
24
16
8
8
8
16
8
8
8
8
16
8
Post-lab
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
Benchmark
2
4
2
2
2
4
2
6
4
2
2
2
4
2
2
2
2
4
2
Signature Details
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Total
25
35
25
25
25
35
25
45
35
25
25
25
35
25
25
25
25
35
25
References:
Eisenberg, A., “Keeping a laboratory notebook.”, J. Chem. Ed., 1982, 59, 1045.
Kanare, H. M., “Writing a Laboratory Notebook”, ACS, 1998.
Padias, A. B., “Making the Connections”, Hayden-McNeil Publising, Inc., Plymouth, MI, 2007.
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