Procedure for preparation of methyl orange

Organic Chemistry Lab: Improving Your Lab Report by Dr. Zhiyong Wang and Dr. Gloria Pimienta The following is a list of things you should bear in mind when you compose a lab report using Microsoft’s Word program: 1. Use 12 point font with normal (1") margins on all sides. 2. Number all pages in sequential order. 3. The date shall be the actual date when your experiment was performed. 4. Separate sections with appropriate sub-headings (bold or italic); and staple all pages together. 5. Your and your partner’s names must be on the report in the following format: XXX (your name) Partner: YYY (partner name) 6. If it’s an experiment of technique (such as melting point measurement), show the chemical structures for all the compounds you actually used in the experiment. If it’s a reaction, show the reaction scheme but not individual structures in the first page. You must draw the structures/schemes by yourself using appropriate software such as MarvinSketch, Accelrys, or ChemDoodle. Direct copy of images from your eChapters, Internet or any electronic resources is not allowed. 7. For reference specify the edition and full page range of the lab textbook. (This requirement is different from the example section F on page 21 of the textbook.) 8. For scientific report the smallest details, such as punctuation, need to be as accurate and correct as possible. Convention must be followed. The grammar must be checked. Each occurrence of minor error will result in 5 points reduction. You will receive some leniency for first-time mistakes, but each recurring minor error will result in full 5 points deduction. 9. All measured values must have an appropriate unit. Have one space between any value and its unit, such as 132 – 133 oC. Use symbols/abbreviations for the units, such as oC instead of degree Celsius and g instead of gram. Common units: g, mg, mol, mmol, mL, L, oC, mm, cm, m, h (for hour), min (for minute), s (for second). The values should also have correct significant numbers. Thus 0.1350 g (measured from a balance) should not be recorded as 0.14 or 0.135 g, and 1.04 mL (measured from a graduated cylinder) should not be recorded as 1.0 or 1 mL. 10. Chemical names are like other nouns. Don’t capitalize them unless they are at the beginning of a sentence. Unlike elsewhere in a sentence, there should be no space after a comma in chemical names, e.g. 1,2-dichloromethane. This is a convention for chemists. Similarly, it should be “iron(III) chloride” but not “iron (III) chloride”. The atom symbols in chemical names needs to be capitalized and italic, such as N,N-dimethylaniline. Prefixes such as “tert”, “meta”, “m”, “ortho”, and “para” need to be italic as in “t-butyl chloride” or “m-xylene”, and they are not capitalized at the beginning of a sentence, e.g. “m-Xylene was used...”. Page 1 11. Procedure: Rephrase the procedures in the textbook using past tense (the action was already done) and passive voice (focus on the action not the doer) for the lab reports. This requirement is different from the example section I on page 22 of the textbook. Quite often we made omissions/additions/modifications to the procedures on the textbook, and in your lab report you should write only the modified procedures. You can write up simplified steps for pre-labs (R on page 25 of the textbook) but only normal paragraphs (see I-K on page 22) should be adopted for lab reports. Wrong format in your Procedure section will result in 10 points deduction. Wrong: Crush the sample into fine powder using a spatula. (instruction format, present tense) Wrong: We crushed the sample into fine powder using a spatula. (active) Correct: The sample was crushed into a fine powder using a spatula. (past tense, passive voice) 12. Observations: faithfully record what you actually did in the experiment. Any data (weight, volume, temperature, time, etc.) and phenomenon (color change, cloud, smoke, bubbling, heat generation, etc.) must be reported. Do not repeat what was already said in the “Procedure” section, although you may have to briefly mention which part of the procedure it was in relation to the observation. Report any accidents and spills. Past tense and passive voice should be used. 13. Yield calculation: for chemical reactions you must show the balanced equation, determine the limiting reagent, and calculate the theoretical and actual yields. The quantity of the starting materials should be what you actually measured (such as 76.9 mg) but not just what the textbook says (such as 75 mg). The yields should be rounded to an integer, e.g. 53% instead of 52.88% or 52.9%. Yield calculation which is wrong or lacking details will result in up to 20 points reduction. The yield you get will not affect your report grade significantly. Too high (> 100%) or too low (< 30%) yield will result in 10 points reduction, in which case you should rationalize it in the “Discussion and Conclusions” section. 14. The reaction mechanism should be drawn by software (such as MarvinSketch, Accelrys, or ChemDoodle) if it has been discussed during our lectures or in in your lab textbook. 15. Discussion and Conclusions You can include things like trends in the data, data interpretation, relevance of the experiment or the technique, and what you have learned. To elaborate using an example:  Background material.