These pages cover typical approaches for the reporting of experimental procedures and reported data, which is applicable to reports and journal articles. In many cases there will be specific style guides to adhere to for these sections, with most journals providing author guidelines which outline the specific expectations. Typically guidelines vary between journals with regard to orders in which data is reported and the formatting requirements. Before preparing any data for reports or publication, it is important to be familiar with the specific expectations, as reformatting later can be very time consuming. This should involve looking at author guidelines, and examining journal articles, previous theses etc which are following these guidelines.

Purpose

Experimental sections provide details for how any experimental work was conducted, and should provide sufficient information for the work to be reproduced by other workers. Experimentals are often encountered in a form using very condensed language, which conveys a large amount of information using minimal text. This format originated due to the high cost of disseminating information in print format, and whilst these initial pressures are no longer present, this condensed information approach to experimentals remains common in the disipline.

Components of experimentals

Experimental sections of reports or papers will often consist of multiple parts, but the exact nature of the section will depend on the type of chemistry being reported. Typical components of an expereimental section are listed below, with links to more detailed information.

General experimental

The general experimental provides detailed information which contextualises information subsequently provided in the rest of the experimental section. This section is often omitted in short communications in journals.

Synthetic procedures

Provides details for the preparation of compounds, which should be given in sufficient detail for another chemist to be able to repeat the synthesis. These procedures typically use very condensed language with chemistry specific verbs conveying the information (e.g. refluxed, recrystallised, extracted), with trained chemists being familiar with these terms.

Compound data listings

Usually accompanying the experimental procedure, compound data listings provide characterisation data for compounds in a compact text form.

Measurement experimental

Provide details for how data has been collected whilst making a laboratory measurement and detail computational methods used in calculations. These might include details for solution preparations, instrument settings (e.g. wavelength ranges or resolution) and any data processing carried out.

Crystallographic data reporting

Crystallographic data has very specific requirements for data reporting. Many synthetic papers do not include this information directly, and instead provide links to crystallographic data repositories, requiring crystal data to be depositied prior to submitting journal articles. However, some journals and theses still report this data in full.

Preparing experimentals

Experimentals are often the most substantial sections of many publications, for example theses in synthetic areas may have as much as two thirds of the thesis consisting of experimental. Being consistent throughout the section is important to make the section as accessible as possible to readers. When preparing multiple entries in an experimental, it is strongly recommended that a single representative entry is prepared first (eg the synthetic procedure and data listing for one compound), and that feedback is obtained on this and implemented, before attempting to prepare subsequent entries.

Locating examples

Reading journal articles in the relevant field will give access to many examples of experimentals. Note that experimentals do vary by journal type, for example full papers generally have much more extensive experimental sections and may be found within the paper itself, or within supplementary information (SI or ESI) available on publishers websites. This site has a page linking to common chemistry journals.

Theses are also an excellent source of examples. Most universities now publish theses into repositories which provide easy access to theses. Theses from the University of York are located in the White Rose repository. Theses from Chemistry at York may be a good starting point. Note that recent theses are often subject to an embargo period of a couple of years.