Abstract Lab Report

An abstract report will be written for all experiments except: (i) the chloride titration experiment; (ii) one round-robin experiment (to be assigned on an individual basis); and (iii) the class project.

The purpose of an abstract report is to describe briefly an experiment and to summarize the significant results and conclusions. No scientist has time to read all the journal articles or lab reports that cross his/her desk. An abstract (together with the figures and tables in the full report) provides a quick overview of the report; if the reader is interested, s/he will read the entire report for more detail.

In general, an abstract should be 1-2 paragraphs long and should be no longer than a single page. In this course, the abstract should state the purpose of the experiment, the method used, the result (i.e., a confidence interval for the predicted analyte concentration), and the major source(s) of error. Remember that, for grading purposes, you will also need to give the unknown number and the raw data on a separate sheet of paper; you will also need to show your calculations. Grading for the abstract reports is as follows:

Data (100 pts)		Writing (15 pts)
accuracy	50 pts	clarity	5 pts
precision	25 pts	organization	5 pts
calculations	25 pts	completeness	5 pts

As mentioned above, your abstracts will consist of the following:

1. A statement of purpose. You will usually need to identify the analyte and describe the sample(s) that you analyzed. Some experiments are a little more elaborate, and may require several sentences to describe their purpose.
2. Identify the analytical technique(s) used. You should be detailed enough for a unique identification of the technique; for example, "titrimetric analysis" is not sufficient. What type of titration? What titrant was used? How was the endpoint detected? These are all important characteristics of the analytical technique.
3. The results. This will often be a confidence interval -- or maybe more than one -- but may also include things like the results of hypothesis tests. You should also include any relevant conclusions.
4. Major sources of error. This part of the abstract is somewhat unique to this class (in other words, it isn't usually included in abstracts in scholarly journals). I want you to identify the major sources of error (random and/or systematic) that could have affected your results. This will mostly be speculation on your part, but I want you to get into the habit of thinking about how error creeps into your data.

Essentially an Abstract clearly, concisely, and as directly as possible answers four questions:

1. What did you do?
2. How did you do it?
3. What did you find?
4. What is the reliability of what you found?