Introduction
This overview includes a statement of the Department of Chemistry’s policy on writing in the laboratory courses, followed by descriptions of the writing requirements in each course. These writing requirements are designed to build skill in scientific writing and reporting, over the three or four years of chemistry coursework.
An important goal of the chemistry program is to help the student develop the skills of writing about chemistry; keeping laboratory records; and reporting the results of laboratory measurements, literature searches, and theoretical analyses. To help develop these skills, the Department of Chemistry requires a graduated series of writing exercises in the laboratory courses, culminating with the requirement of full, publication-like reports of experimental work carried out in the advanced lab courses. While the exact format of the full reports is left to the discretion of individual instructors, all formats will include at least the following parts: a brief abstract of the experimental project and its most important results; description of methods and materials; presentation of results, including tables and graphs of data; discussion and interpretation of results (including analysis of uncertainty), with appropriate conclusions drawn and justified; and list of references cited in the report. The aim of writing exercises in the lower-division courses is to build, step by step, the skills that you will need to write each part of a full report.
Work submitted to fulfill writing requirements should conform to the standard of Edited Standard Written English. They should be examples of your best writing, prepared with the same care that you would take in a writing course. Choose words with precision and spell them correctly. Construct sentences that are logical and grammatically correct. Develop only a single topic in each paragraph. Arrange paragraphs in sensible order. Shortcomings in these areas will lower the grade.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Coursework
Important elements of chemistry courses include developing your ability to think critically, to analyze information, and to express your ideas clearly and concisely. These skills will benefit you in your academic and professional careers, and to develop them correctly, you should not rely on AI tools. With that in mind, use of an AI generator such as ChatGPT, iA Writer, MidJourney, DALL-E, etc. is explicitly prohibited. All work submitted must be your own. Any assignment found to have used unauthorized AI tools may receive a zero and be reported for academic misconduct. However, several instructors will show how to effectively use AI as a tool, but its use will be only by instructor permission.
As students undertake the writing exercises in each course, these points about the aims and goals of writing need to be remembered:
- Writing is important in all areas of scientific work, because results have no value unless they are shared with other workers.
- Writing is more than a means of displaying what one knows. Writing is a means of learning. As laboratory work is “written up”, gaps in understanding will be filled in, logical conclusions from results will be drawn, limitations of instruments and data will be discovered, and explanations for the behavior of the system under study will be formulated. The resulting increase in knowledge and understanding is a product of writing about the subject. Writing is an important part of the learning that begins, but is not completed, in the lab.
- Writing is a means of eliminating distractions. It forces the irrelevant to be pushed away and the relevant to be gathered, and then the subject to be concentrated on until it is understood in detail.
- Writing entails revision. Even the best writers cannot produce a final draft on the first try. Students must alternately write, edit, rewrite, edit, rewrite…. The first draft is never the final draft.
- Improving writing is a life-long process that moves forward only if it is practiced. Short-term improvement in writing is often almost imperceptible. Long- term improvement will never occur unless one writes often.
Writing Requirements in Chemistry Courses
The writing exercises that lead up to and foster the skills required for full reports are as follows:
CHY 114 – Laboratory Techniques I
Writing Exercise: Lab Notebooks, Post Lab Narratives, Post Lab Data Interpretation, Final Paper
Students maintain lab notebooks for every experiment. The goal is to write with enough detail that another CHY 114 student could replicate the experiment using the notebook. See the Laboratory Notebook guidelines provided to students for reference.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mqNCnQKyxwPXaFtlFXvFGLuzFBewCqQG/view
For every post lab, students construct a narrative of the experiment, in which they include the objectives of the lab, the basics of the procedure, and any possible sources of error. They also include a brief interpretation of their data.
Students write a final culminating paper for the Green River Project. The expectation is that students are able to use their post-lab narratives, post-lab graphs, etc., and stitch them together into a cohesive paper. Requirements and expectations can be found here:
https://sites.google.com/maine.edu/chy114principlesofchemistryi/lab-practical-paper/final-paper
CHY 116 – Laboratory Techniques II
Writing Exercise: Lab Notebooks, Post Lab Summaries, Formal Lab Report
Students maintain lab notebooks for every experiment. The goal is to write with enough detail that another CHY 116 student could replicate the experiment using the notebook. See the Laboratory Notebook guidelines provided to students for reference.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mqNCnQKyxwPXaFtlFXvFGLuzFBewCqQG/view
For every post lab, students write roughly a half page summary of the experiment. This summary includes:
- Summary of the experiment including the goal of the experiment, how the experiment was conducted (an overview, not procedural details), and what analysis was performed.
- Summary of the results and outcomes: do not include intermediate calculations, etc. Focus on the final results. Include major relevant data.
- Conclusion statement of the results.
- Description of source(s) of error for this experiment: remember that ‘human error’ or ‘mistakes’ are not acceptable sources of error. Review the Sources of Error page on the course website.
For the Organic Compound Analysis lab, students write a formal lab report in the style of a professional publication. Requirements for this report can be found here:
https://sites.google.com/maine.edu/labtechniques2/lab-manual/formal-lab-report
CHY 233 – Analytical Chemistry
Writing Exercise: Analysis of Error, Lab notebooks and laboratory reports
Significant focus will be taken on proper laboratory technique, statistical analysis, and propagation of error. As a key part of the students’ laboratory results, statistical significance and accuracy as befits an academic publication will be quantified. Description of such statistical analyses and comparison to proper controls are vital in this course.
CHY 252 – Organic Chemistry Laboratory I
Writing Exercise: Lab notebooks and laboratory reports
Throughout this course and all subsequent chemistry lab courses, students will be expected to maintain lab notebooks according to the basic guidelines provided in CHY 116. More extensive guidelines, along with examples, are included in the syllabus for CHY 252. Instructors will examine the notebooks and suggest how they should be improved. Several full laboratory reports, including an abstract, procedure, data analysis, and conclusions will be written during the semester.
CHY 254 – Organic Chemistry Laboratory II
Writing Exercise: Lab notebooks and laboratory reports
As in CHY 252 students will maintain lab notebooks, and write full laboratory reports including thorough data analysis. Guidelines and examples are included in the syllabus for CHY 254. In addition to the synthesis of target molecules, various projects will be explored such as designing procedures for Wittig Reactions, and the isolation of natural products. Full descriptive procedures for these specific labs will be written by the student.
CHY 374 – Physical Chemistry Laboratory
Writing Exercise: Results, lab reports, and final papers/projects
In the first lab reports of CHY 374, presentation of data and calculated results in writing, as well as in tables, graphs, and illustrations will be emphasized. As part of two or three lab reports, students will present results as if for a published paper. Guidelines and examples are included in the syllabus for CHY 374.
CHY 462 – Biochemistry Laboratory l
Writing Exercise: Lab notebooks and Full publication-like report
Applying the foundations from CHY 252/254, CHY 462 focuses on using basic biochemical techniques to answer scientific questions engaging students in a semester-long project. Students design and carry out their own experiments, documenting their work in a laboratory notebook. Writing focuses on explaining procedures, describing data obtained, and explaining the meaning of those data. At the end of the semester, a report, modelling a scientific research paper, is written using the data that has been collected from each experiment.
CHY 470 – Chemistry in Perspective (Capstone)
Writing Exercise: Lab notebooks, Writing Projects, and Full publication-like report
Chemistry in Perspective is the capstone course for Chemistry and Biochemistry majors. This course focuses on developing skills to make our graduates successful in their postgraduate education and the workforce. To that end, the course covers issues that may come up in employment, how to give a presentation, and how to write a research paper. The students have individual research projects (either with USM faculty or external partners). Throughout the course, the students develop their oral and written presentation skills, with small assignments that encompass pieces of their presentation/article. At the end of the semester, the students give an oral presentation to the department and their fellow majors, and write up their project in the style of a journal article. CHY 470 counts as a WRI3 requirement.
All other upper-division lab courses
Writing Exercise: Discussions, Full publication-like reports
In all advanced laboratory courses not mentioned above, students will write at least two or three discussions of results, in which they present theoretical explanations for the observed behavior of the system under study. In addition, students will write at least one full report containing abstract, procedures, results, discussion, and a list of cited sources. The exact format of the full report, including the discussion section, is up to the instructor, and there will be no effort to standardize the format, except that instructors will try to build upon the experience students have gained in previous writing exercises. (The intentional lack of a standard is realistic in that all journals and all employers will have their own arbitrary standards, to which all contributors must conform.) Guidelines and examples when the first reports are assigned will be provided. Examples will usually be exemplary reports written by students in previous years.
Edited Standard Written English (ESWE)
(Adapted from material provided by Barbara E. Walvoord, Professor of English, University of Notre Dame)
I. Introduction
Suppose a group of people were living on a small island, all using the same forms of language, until one day the island broke in two, separated by impassable rough water. In 100 years, would the people on both halves still use the same language forms? No. Human language is always changing. Language on each half of the island would evolve with different forms and rules; neither would be “better” in any absolute sense — just different.
One of the tasks of a good education is to make you aware of different forms of language, and to prepare you to function effectively in the world where readers generally expect you to control Edited Standard Written English (ESWE). Thus, in most university courses, you must master and use ESWE in formal writing.
II. ESWE in Chemistry Courses at USM
On finished, final, formal papers, in order to receive a passing grade, you must have no more than an average of 2 departures from ESWE per page, in any combination of the following areas:
- all quoted material enclosed in quotation marks
- spelling (a typo is a misspelling)
- end of sentence punctuation (avoid run-on, comma splice, fragment, or misuse of semicolon). Note: Occasionally, you may use a fragment or comma splice for a special effect. Show that you are conscious of the departure by labeling it “ESWE departure for special effect” in the margin.
- verb forms (use ESWE forms of lie, lay, etc., and ESWE rules for adding -ed and -s, using helping verbs, etc.)
- verb tense (avoid confusing shifts in verb tense)
- agreement of subject and verb
- pronoun form (use ESWE rules to choose between I and me, she and her, who and whom, etc.)
- agreement of pronoun with antecedent (the antecedent is the word the pronoun refers to)
- apostrophe, -s, -es
- sentence sense (words omitted, scrambled, or incomprehensible)
Different chemistry instructors may have different policies on how ESWE affects your grades. Commonly, for the first one or two writing assignments of a specific type (such as an abstract), if your paper contains excessive departures from ESWE, your instructor will return it ungraded for you to improve and resubmit. After this trial period, papers with excessive departures from ESWE may receive a failing grade.
NOTE that this policy applies only to finished, final, formal writing. In informal writing, such as keeping records in a laboratory notebook, it is perfectly legitimate to pay less attention to ESWE conventions and to focus instead on structure and content. Be sure you know your instructor’s policies for each type of writing assignment.
Appendix 2
Writing and Computer Assignments in Chemistry Laboratory Courses
We are currently developing a computing-across-the-curriculum policy in parallel to the writing policy. This table shows the types of both writing and computing assignments in our courses.
| Course | Writing Component | Technology Component |
| CHY 114 Laboratory Techniques I | Abstracts | Word ProcessingSpreadsheet/Graphing Programs |
| CHY 116 Laboratory Techniques II | AbstractsLaboratory Notebooks | Word ProcessingSpreadsheet/Graphing Programs |
| CHY 233 Analytical Laboratory | Propagation of ErrorLaboratory Notebooks | Word ProcessingAdvanced Spreadsheet, including Calculations, Statistics, Graphing, and Curve-Fitting Analysis |
| CHY 252 & 254 Organic Laboratory I & II | Laboratory Notebooks ProceduresComplete Report in Publication Form | Word ProcessingLiterature Searches – scientific databases |
| CHY 362 Biochemistry Laboratory | Laboratory NotebooksResultsDiscussion and InterpretationComplete Report in Publication Form | Word ProcessingAdvanced Spreadsheet, Including Calculations, Statistics, Graphing, and Curve-Fitting AnalysisAdvanced Molecular Modeling ProgramsComputerized Data CollectionInternet Tools |
| CHY 374 Thermodynamics Laboratory | Laboratory NotebooksComplete Report in Publication Form | Word ProcessingPresentation SoftwareAdvanced Spreadsheet |
| CHY 378 Instrumental Analysis Laboratory | Laboratory NotebooksResultsDiscussion and InterpretationComplete Report in Publication Form | Word ProcessingAdvanced Spreadsheet, Including Calculations, Statistics, Graphing, and Curve-Fitting AnalysisPresentation Software |
| CHY 470 Chemistry in Perspective | Laboratory NotebooksAnalysis and Summary of Primary Literature | Word ProcessingLiterature Searches – scientific databases Presentation Software |
Computer Programs by Category
Word Processing
- Microsoft Word
Spreadsheet
- Microsoft Excel
Molecular Modeling
- Molecules-3D
- Advanced Molecular Modeling
- Spartan
- ChemOffice
- ChemIntosh
- MacSpartan
- Sculpt
- SwissPdbViewer
- Internet Molecular Modeling
- Rasmol
- Chime
Literature Searches – scientific databases
- ChemAbstracts
- Carl’s Uncover
- MedLine
- STN Express
Sections of a Complete Laboratory Report
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Experimental Procedures
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusions
- References