Experiment Title
Name:
Date:	Lab Section:

*Lab reports must be TYPED.*

REACTION

Draw the reaction that you ran. You may either use a chemical drawing program or leave space and draw it in by hand.

DATA TABLE

Under the reaction, make a table of the essential data for the compounds involved. Include items such as molecular weight, molar ratio, amount used, moles used, literature melting points for reagents and products, calculated theoretical yield, as appropriate.

PROCEDURE

The process of writing a procedure is an exercise in summarization. Focus on the main, essential points and omit the extraneous. NEVER copy the procedure from the lab manual.

• Use the past tense and use it consistently. Use the passive voice.
  • NOT: HCl was added and TLCs are performed.
  • BUT: HCl was added and TLCs were performed.
• Do not use "I."
• Do not use "first" or "second" etc.
  • NOT: First, the separatory funnel was filled and second the layers were separated.
  • BUT: The separatory funnel was filled and the layers were separated.
• Do not write the procedure as if you were directing someone what to do.
  • NOT: Separate the layers and save a sample of the ether solution.
  • BUT: The layers were separated and a sample of the ether solution was saved.
• Write complete sentences in paragraphs. Do not number the steps.
• Your actual data (how much sample did you weigh out, how much solution did you extract with) should appear EITHER in the procedure OR in the results but it must appear somewhere.

When organic chemists write procedures for each other, they read something like this:

Benzyl chloride (xx mmol, xx g) and triphenylphosphine (xx mmol, xx g) were dissolved in p-cymene (20 mL) and heated at reflux for 2 hours. The reaction mixture was cooled to room temperature and then in an ice-bath. The precipitate was collected by filtration and was washed with cold petroleum ether. The solid was dried, weighed (xx g, xx%), and gave a melting point of xx °C. The phosphonium salt (10 mmol, xx g) thus prepared was combine with cinnamaldehyde (10 mmol, xx g) in dichloromethane (5 mL). A solution of 50% aq. NaOH (5 mL) was added and the mixture was stirred vigorously for 10 min. The reaction mixture was partitioned between dichloromethane (20 mL) and water (15 mL). The organic layer was dried (MgSO4), filtered, and evaporated to provide crude product (xx g). The crude material was stirred with 60% ethanol (35 mL) and then filtered. The collected solid was recrystallized from 95% ethanol to provide pure product (xx g, xx%), mp xx °C.

RESULTS

Some of your data will appear in the data table above, especially the amounts of compounds you used. In this section, give the yield (grams and %, crude and purified), mp's, TLC data, IR data, etc. Sometimes a table will be the most efficient way to present the data.

DISCUSSION

This is the portion of the report where you discuss IN DETAIL what you observed and what you learned during the experiment.

A discussion of the MECHANISM of the reaction will be expected for most reports. You may draw it in between paragraphs.

Think carefully about the reaction(s) you ran. Was it an addition, elimination, substitution, rearrangement reaction? What functional groups were changed? What was the function of each reagent that you added? Why was the reaction heated or cooled? Why did it run for such as short or long time? What lab techniques did you use? What did each step in the procedure accomplish? How do you know that the sample you prepared was what you expected it to be? Did you purify the sample? How can you tell?

You may wish to discuss the outcome of your experiment: your yield was high or low, the mp was right on or way off, you spilled the reaction of the benchtop or you used the wrong amount of reagent. Please DO NOT attribute poor results to some ambiguous "experimental error." Think about what might have caused your results to be great or not so great.

CONCLUSIONS

Pretty obvious. Keep it short.