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CHEM 2157: Industrial Organic Chemistry

Step 1: Review your assignment

El complejo petroquímico más importante de España / The most important petrochemical complex in Spain

Review your assignment criteria:

-- What are you being asked to do?

-- What are the deliverables and when are they due?

 

 




"El complejo petroquímico más importante de España /The most important petrochemical complex in Spain"  by Repsol is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Steps 2-4: Search Tips

Your assignment requires you to describe applications for some broad topics, the best place to find this type of information is in academic reference resources such as scientific dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Try the following to find reference materials for your assignment:

Naming:

Find some of the common names and ID numbers for your compound.

You will find that there are many possible names for your compound. Be sure to identify the most commonly used names as well as the IUPAC name [define this] and CAS number (also known as RN - registry number) [define this]).

      Key resources:
  1. PubChem - information on chemical structures, identifiers, chemical and physical properties, biological activities, patents, health, safety, toxicity data, and many others.
  2. ChemSpider - from the Royal Society of Chemistry. It links data from many information sources.


Properties:

Use your names and ID numbers to search the information sources below for physical, chemical, biological and environmental properties of your compound 

Note: You may also find some info in the sources listed above.

  1. CRC handbook of chemistry and physics 
  2. CCOHS - Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety [Look for the CHEMINFO entry]

Finding production/synthesis information can be tricky, try these information sources, in this order.

First try:


You can also try searching these resources, especially for manufacturing, history, usage information:

Step 5. Citation

Even though you are not writing a paper, you will still need to cite your sources of information on your poster. 

Examples of the most common types of Chemistry resources that you may need to cite are available on the ACS Citation and APA Citation sections of the main Chemistry Library Subject Guide.  

Other APA resources that may be helpful:

Presenting your work

Tips and resources for creating and presenting posters is available on the Undergraduate Research: Poster Presentations Library Guide 

Free poster templates are available from:

Paraphrasing / summarising

To avoid plagiarism when paraphrasing / summarising remember these five important points:

1) Your paraphrased text should be significantly different from the original (i.e. don't just change a few words here and there)

2) You must change the structure of the sentence or paragraph you are paraphrasing, not just the words.

3) If you use anyone else's words verbatim (word for word) you need to put quotation marks around it. Warning: Quotations are rarely used in the sciences

4) Use proper citation methods (in this case use APA) to give credit for the idea's, opinions or theories you are presenting.

5) Check that you have preserved the original meaning of the text in your paraphrased version

Use copyright friendly images in your presentation

  • It is best if you use your own imagespublic domain images or images licensed under a permissive license, such as Creative Commons licenses.
  • Always provide a citation so the source of the image is known.
  • To find copyright-friendly multimedia to use in your presentation try searching here

Find out more: Copyright guide for students

Where to get help!

Questions about assignment requirements, due dates, submission, or the science you encounter in this assignment contact your Instructor!

Having difficulty finding information (either too much or too little), challenges with databases not working, or have questions about citation, please contact your Librarian

You can also get help by clicking on the MRU Library Ask Us chat popup on the lower right-hand side of each of the library webpages

Chemistry Librarian

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Kalen Keavey

Contact:
Email: kkeavey@mtroyal.ca
Phone: 403.440.8516
Office: EL4423O