Re: Is this acceptable Chemical English?

From: Marvin (physchem_at_cloud9.net)
Date: 02/25/05 

Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:36:43 -0500

farooq_w@hotmail.com wrote:
> When asked to experimental procedure in the past tense, rather odd
> constructions appear in the lab reports, because sometimes it makes an
> odd Urdu translation: eg. the instruction
>
> "Weigh 0.1 g of extra pure X to the nearest 0.1 mg, transfer to a 500
> ml volumetric flask(...). Take the absorbance readings..."
> is usually transformed as
>
> "Weighed 0.1675 g X, transferred and dissolved in distilled water and
> _maked up_ the volume. Took absorbance of this solution.
>
>
> Just wanted to ask if the following recommendation is standard
> chem-English for describing solution preparation:
>
> 0.1675 g of extra pure X was accurately weighed, transferred to a 500
> ml volumetric flask, it was dissolved in distilled water and diluted to
> the mark with it.
>
> Is it correct start a sentence with a number?
>
> Or this one is better?
> "A 1.234 x 10 ^-2 M solution of X was prepared by weighing 0.1675 g of
> extra pure X and transferred (transferring??) it to a 500 mL volumetric
> flask, dissolved (or should it be dissolving??) in distilled water and
> diluted to the mark with it"
>
> Secondly, grams should be taken as a singular as a footnote in
> Pauling's General Chemistry suggests.
>
> 2 grams was weighed --Correct?
> 2 grams were weighed--Incorrect? Right?
>
Standards for lab reports are set by the institution, or by the person who will review the reports. There is no general
standard. Journals each have their own guides for authors. The best guides for science writing are the style manuals for
writing in general.

When I wrote my Ph.D. thesis, I got into a dispute with a lady in the college's library whose job was to read all theses for
form. She wanted the usage "X-ray", even when I showed her scientific journals that all used "x-ray". I decided to do it
her way so that I could graduate.