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See the standard editorial symbols used to mark papers.
The Abstract should be brief but complete. All important results should be summarized (for example, relative yield; purity; identification of an unknown.)
The Introduction must discuss the expectations for the experiment. What were the goals? This is also the place to present a summary of the general theory or principle(s) behind the experiment. Brevity is not essential but will be appreciated by the grader!
The Discussion must address each result in enough detail to present the theory (if any) behind the finding and to tell whether the desired results were obtained. Evidence obtained by your own experimental work must be used. Spectra obtained should be analyzed in some way, and reactions involved (if any) should be presented and discussed briefly. CEM 222 students must discuss the mechanism of the reaction.
What goes in the Introduction and what goes in the Discussion are flexible, and you need not duplicate explanations or background material. Please do not include a "calculations" section.
The Conclusion must summarize the important results and address each point raised in the introduction if relevant to the experimental results. That is, you should not say "the principles of chromatography allowed us to separate the mixture" but if one of the goals was to isolate clove oil, you should say whether you did or did not!
The Experimental section will concisely present the operations actually performed in the laboratory; for guidance, see the laboratory manual and consult issues of ACS journals such as the Journal of Organic Chemistry via the OhioLink electronic journal center. Normally this section will include all measurements performed (i.e. starting mass, absolute and relative yield, melting or boiling points, spectral data) during the experiment.
"Cookbooking" (defined in the laboratory manual) will result in a score of zero for this section. But we walk a fine line; failure to present (concisely) all the important operations will also result in a lower score.
See also an Experimental Section on changing a light bulb
Yields will be independently calculated by the grader, from the data recorded in your notebook. It will be graded on a 0-5 scale with the largest yield getting 5 points. Failure to report or properly calculate the yield will result in a grade of zero. If the grader cannot reproduce your reported yield using data from your notebook pages, you will receive zero points of five for yield.
Appearance of your product will be graded on a 0-3 scale.
These points will be awarded for correct identification of unknowns in those experiments in which unknowns are to be identified.
The report must be well written in ACS standard style with scoring on this scale:
| 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Standard English is trampled on |
Concise, well-written and well-edited |
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Points to consider include not only clarity but spelling, proper use of paragraphs, and so forth. Good writing style will not make up for poor or nonexistent content.
Because not every report will have every item listed above, all reports will be scaled to 100 points.