This laboratory book has been prepared to help students taking university studies in natural sciences. The book intends to serve as a guiding book for laboratory based studies in natural sciences, especially chemistry as bridging subject of any other natural science subject.
The first part of the book presents a general format for scientific laboratory report that can be adapted as much as needed by students. The fact is that at the university, laboratory reports are the regular documents written in most laboratorybased studies. However, little time or attention is devoted on how to write them well. Worse yet, each supervisor want something a little different from students. Regardless of variations, the goal of laboratory reports remains the same. The most crucial when writing a laboratory report is to document findings and communicate their significance. With that in mind, students should be able to write laboratory reports based on format by including all basic components. However, writing laboratory report does more than presenting data because it has to bears the writer’s comprehension of the concepts behind the data: identify how and why differences occurred during the experiment, explain how they affected experiment to reflect one understands of the principles of the experiment. The laboratory report format, however helpful, cannot replace clear thinking and organized writing capabilities of individual student, see examples on appendices.
The book describes general aspects related to good practices in the laboratory. It also provides the background information and overview knowledge, skills and procedures required in the preparation of laboratory reagents from stock chemicals. The later chapters discuss key ideas required in referencing various literature resources in a scholarly written work or scientific report. The book also presents concepts and techniques applied in the extraction of secondary metabolites from plant materials, design of experiment, plagiarism cases, type and how to avoid as well as chromatographic methods applicable in the study of natural sciences.
... Read more Read less
