Arabia Mountain High School Dr. Fred I. Okoh

Science Department

e-mail:

AP Chemistry

Keeping a laboratory notebook.

Your notebook is one of your most valuable resource. With it you can repeat your experiment, find out what happened at your leisure, and even figure out where you blew it. Above all, some colleges may exempt you from a lab course if your lab notebook indicates that you have a good laboratory experience.

General guidelines for a lab notebook are as follows:

  1. Notebook should be permanently bound (no loose-leaf). Duplicate carbon notebooks are even better because you can turn in the carbon copy for grading. Leave a few pages in front for a table of contents and number the pages.
  1. Use ink, never pencil. Never erase, just draw a line through your errors your errors (your errors) and never, never tear off a page. Skipping pages is extremely poor taste.
  1. A proper lab format must have title, objectives, background, hypothesis, materials, procedure, observations or data table, analysis including error analysis, and conclusions.
  1. The procedure must be written in past tense, 3rd person(what was done), not what it says to do in the lab manual or handout. A diagram is worth a thousand words.
  1. Observations/data table must include any and all observations, color change, measurements(in table form including the correct units), anything that occurred.
  1. Analysis must give a reasonable explanation of your observations as well as calculations from results and trends in your results. In error analysis, you calculate your percent error or percent yield, figure out why your result differs from the true value (where you went wrong-indeterminate errors) and then discuss how this impacts your result (does it make your result higher or lower?).
  1. Conclusions from your experimentation are very important. Are there unanswered questions that would make your results more meaningful? Answer any conclusion questions if any for the experiment.
  1. Authenticate your report with your name and the date.