Writing an Organic Chemistry Lab Report

Components of a Laboratory Report
The following components must be included in the lab report for each experiment, along with any additional material
required by your instructor.
 Title
 Introduction
o Equipment schematic (technique experiments)
o Balanced Chemical Equation (for reactions) OR Pertinent chemical structures
o Physical data (MW, boiling/melting point, molar calculations)
 Procedure
 Observations (qualitative and quantitative)
 Discussion

Title
Give your experiment a title. This should be a brief, clear description of the subject of the report.
Introduction
Concisely state the purpose of the experiment. Historical background if there is any should be included here. If
the experiment is a preparative experiment, the introduction also includes the balanced equation for the reaction.
In organic chem, there are different types of experiments: technique and preparative. A technique experiment is
one in which you are performing a technique for the first time and studying its details, for example, distillation
and extraction. A preparative/synthetic experiment is one in which a compound is synthesized from other
reagents.
Equipment Schematic (technique experiments)
Use Chemix.org to create a diagram of the experimental setup. An example of a equipment schematic made with
Chemix.org for a Recrystallization is shown below: