Hi, I have formal lab report due on Esterification of vanillin with acetic anhydride in acidic and basic conditions.

Hi,

I have formal lab report due on Esterification of vanillin with acetic anhydride in acidic and basic conditions. I need help with that.

It should include the mechanism for both the reaction under acidic and basic conditions, also the calculations for finding the percent yield of the product if my values are :

Vanillin Used in Acidic Conditions: 0.1498 g and formed the product of: .2153 g

Vanilliin Used in Basic conditions: 0.3017 g and formed the product of: 0.2536 g

Teacher's requirements:

"The main report sections

 Title
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Experimental or Methods section
 Results & Discussion
 References - Cite all works used. This means using internet citations where appropriate.
"Voice"
In general, scientific papers are written in third person passive voice.
First person: "I added the chalcone and ethyl acetoacetate to 0.6 mL of ethanol and heated it to 60C."
Third person passive: "The chalcone and ethyl acetoacetate were added to 0.6 mL of ethanol and heated to 60C."
Third person voice describes what happens from an outside perspective (as it was being observed). Passive means that we describe what was being done to a subject. In contrast, an active voice means you describe what the subject of the sentence did to an object. This is especially true in the experimental section where you will describe what an outside observer might have viewed.
Title
The title of the paper should not be: "Experiment 69". Instead, it should be something like: Synthesis of "name the compound here" from "name the reactants" using "name the reactions here".
Here are a couple of titles from the most recent Journal of Organic Chemistry as examples:
 "Magnesium‐Promoted Additions of Difluoroenolates to Unactivated Imines"
 Total Synthesis and Stereochemical Revision of Stereocalpin A: Mirror‐Image Approach for
Stereochemical Assignments of the Peptide-Polyketide Macrocycle
 Regio‐ and Stereoselective Synthesis of Isoindolin‐1‐ones through BuLi‐Mediated
Iodoaminocyclization of 2‐(1‐Alkynyl)benzamides
To be sure, there are many other types of articles in journals besides "synthesis of *this*", but those are the types of titles that are closest to what you did in this experiment.
Introduction
The introduction should describe the reactions and give a foundation for understanding the reactions and results of this experiment. Remember, you are writing the introduction having completed the experiment and the analysis. These are named reactions, so you should be able to find out quite a bit of information about the addition of acetoxy groups to aldehydes under acidic and basic conditions.

There are several topics you could consider covering in your introduction. Here are some suggestions

 Name of the reaction
 Class of compound for the products (i.e. acetoxy derivatives of ...)
 Uses for the products (i.e. why would you do it)
 Conditions for types of products
 How what you did fits those conditions and what the expected products would be for your
molecule.
 Lastly, but importantly, describe what you are about to talk about in the remainder of the
paper. For example (beginning of the last paragraph of journal articles).

o "Herein, we describe a simple and mild method to add difluoroenolates, produced from

the release of trifluoroacetate from highly ‐fluorinated gem‐diols, to unactivated

imines."

o "Thus, the methodology reported here represents the first successful

iodoamiocyclization of easily accessible 2‐(1‐alkynyl)benzamides, yielding the corresponding isoindolin‐1‐ones regio‐ and stereoselectively."

Experimental Section

The Experimental section is not a regurgitation of the lab procedure. In this section, describe what you did in your experiment and what your observations were. Include colors, descriptions of precipitates, any difficulties, and other observations that would be important to someone trying to replicate the results. Also, it is important to recognize that you generally write the procedure in past‐ tense because you have already done it. Lab procedures are generally in present tense and have a directive voice

Results and discussion

Before writing this section, you should think about the order you will present your data. The following might help.

 Does the order matter? In other words, did you learn something from analyzing the acid product that helped you understand what was happening with the basic product? Maybe it's the other way around. In either case, think the process through.
 Is it helpful to determine both structures first? Maybe its better to determine a structure and then discuss a reasonable mechanism. For example, suppose you determine the acid product and its mechanism. What is the likely first step of acid catalyzed mechanism? How does that help you determine the product?
You must have text describing the data that was collected. You can summarize all the data first and the discuss the data or you can present some of the data and then discuss that portion of data. It is up to you how you do it.
Tetrahedron Letters format
It's a tradition at FCC that students submit their reports formatted for Tetrahedron Letters. I've uploaded an example article for you to use to help you with your formatting. "