These guidelines supplement the Guide to Submissions (published in J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 1541) or available on request from the JCE editorial office). Manuscripts that describe laboratory experiments should first follow the Guide to Submissions and then apply these Supplemental Guidelines. You may wish to download these Supplemental Guidelines in PDF format.

Rationale

JCE receives many submissions that describe laboratory experiments. The broad range of experiments readers can find each month is one of our most important features. These supplemental guidelines have been designed to make published laboratory experiments as useful as possible to readers. They are based on four fundamental ideas:

• peer review of a lab-experiment manuscript should be based to a large degree on the written and technology-based materials used by students in the laboratory, not just on a description of those materials; JCE should print the information a reader needs to decide whether to try to use the experiment; this includes information about possible safety hazards; readers who decide to use a lab should be able to adapt it to their circumstances quickly and easily;
• detailed information, including student materials, should be available to adopters of an experiment in a format that is modifiable and easily adapted for use by faculty, students, and support staff.

To support these goals we require that a manuscript that describes a laboratory experiment must consist of a Lab Summary and Lab Documentation. (Each of these is described in detail below.) If, after peer review, a lab-experiment manuscript is published, only the Lab Summary will be printed in JCE. The Abstract, the Lab Summary, and all Lab Documentation will be published via JCE Online. Lab Documentation is placed on the Web as PDF files that can be displayed and printed by Acrobat Reader, and as Word or Word Perfect files that can be edited by those who adopt a lab. Those without Web access can request printed copies of all materials related to a particular experiment. We will provide these via U.S. Postal Service at cost.

Literature Search

Those who plan to submit a lab experiment should first search titles in the JCE Index online to make certain that a similar experiment has not already appeared in the Journal. Related experiments should be cited in the Literature Cited section of the manuscript; if a previously published lab is very similar, some explanation should be given as to why the new manuscript provides information not already available to readers. Prospective authors should also search the Annotated List of Laboratory Experiments, a keyworded, computer-searchable database compiled by Stanley Bunce, James Zubrick, and members of the Division of Chemical Education Committee on Project ChemLab, now available on-line.

Lab Summary

The Lab Summary must be accompanied by an abstract, keywords, and Lab Documentation. It will usually include literature cited and may include tables and figures. (See the JCE Guide to Submissions for more details.) The Lab Summary should be no longer than two Journal pages (about 1500 words). The Lab Summary should enable a reader to decide whether the experiment described would be suitable for a local course or program. It should briefly give a rationale for adopting the experiment and an indication of the course or level where the experiment fits into the curriculum. It should describe the procedures, techniques, facts, and concepts students will learn. It should explain how and why the experiment helps the students learn and give typical results obtained by students who have done the experiment. It should list equipment, chemicals, and/or instruments that are not expected to be available in a typical chemistry department. The Lab Summary must include a section headed "Hazards". This section should describe any hazards related to procedures or substances or it should state that there are no significant hazards.

Lab Documentation

Lab Documentation should include all material not available in the Lab Summary that would be useful to a reader who intended to carry out the experiment with students at the reader's institution. This must include: written directions used by students; instructor notes to help the adopter of the experiment adapt it to local conditions; CAS Registry Numbers for all chemicals; complete information regarding potential hazards to students and instructors; and appropriate safety warnings in student directions. (If any of these are unnecessary for a particular experiment, the Lab Documentation should indicate that they are absent and explain why they are not needed.) If the experiment cannot be carried out without author-produced software, spreadsheet templates, or other technology-based materials, copies of these materials should be supplied in computer-readable format. Examples of Lab Experiments already published in this format are available at JCE Online.

Summary

These supplemental guidelines for laboratory experiments are intended to make JCE more useful and attractive to readers by providing in print a clear summary of the experiment and providing online more detailed information in a form that can be used and edited by readers. A checklist is available that suggests how a submission should be structured.