Writing Your Abstract and Presentation

Remember that you need to provide information about the following in your abstract and presentation:

1.) Chemical Structure

2.) Chemical Information

• Physical Properties (e.g. melting/boiling points, physical state at STP, solubility, density, molecular weight)
• Common name and systematic IUPAC name
• Chemical formula
• Chemical structure

3.) Historical Information (including date of discovery or first synthesis)

4.) Uses of this molecule

5.) Societal risks and benefits

6.) An analysis of a recent, peer-reviewed research article. In this analysis, you will need to:

• Summarize the research that was done in the article
• Discuss conclusions drawn from the research
• Discuss future areas for research that the authors highlight

Example: Steps for Completing Assignment

Imagine that I am a student in your class. Here is the process that I would go through to choose a molecule to research for this project. (Unfortunately, you will not be able to use this molecule for your project!)

1. Finding My Popular Article: As a starting point for this project, I visited the website for Scientific American. I searched for the term "plastics" in the search box and saw this article on the results list, which mentions BPA.
    
2. Evaluating My Popular Article: I read the article and learned that BPA (bisphenol-A) has been linked to numerous health problems including cancer, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.
    
3. Finding Other Popular Articles: I decided to look and see if there were other, perhaps better, articles written about BPA in the popular media. I did the following search on Google, using the site limiter to search only articles published in The New York Times.

 

 This search led to a host of articles, one of which was particularly interesting:

​There seems to be a lot written in the popular press about this molecule, and it has interesting practical applications in my everyday life. I think that I have found my molecule!

Sample Abstract and Bibliography

We have written a sample abstract on BPA for you to see as an example when creating your own. There is also a sample bibliography, formatted according to ACS style.

Sample Abstract for BPA