Do You Fudge Your Lab Numbers?

[Chevy Chase Fan]

Got 46% error on my chemistry lab and can easily fix it by making a few small "adjustments." I really don't want to lose points b/c I read 25.3 degrees on my thermometer instead of 25.8. Tried really hard to do things perfect and the numbers still came out bad. I must admit I suck in the lab, heh. Still, I feel somewhat guilty about it and am afraid I might get in trouble if I change them to lower my error.

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[Ochempwnsme]

Got 46% error on my chemistry lab and can easily fix it by making a few small "adjustments." I really don't want to lose points b/c I read 25.3 degrees on my thermometer instead of 25.8. Tried really hard to do things perfect and the numbers still came out bad. I must admit I suck in the lab, heh. Still, I feel somewhat guilty about it and am afraid I might get in trouble if I change them to lower my error.

Poor baby. Did the TA and lab supervisor conspire against you?

Honestly, now I have no excuse to take anything you said seriously. You're talking about serious academic misconduct. It's equivalent to plagiarism, because you'd be taking credit for work that isn't your own. Science depends on accurately reported results and if you fudge your data, then you're no scientist, you're a dishonest thief. I have pretty poor lab technique too and what I've found is TAs and professors that grade labs care more about you steadily improving in lab from week to week rather than having great yields or perfect crystals in your products. You're graded more on your lab write-up and understanding rather than your manual dexterity.

 

[Chevy Chase Fan]

I never once mentioned my professor in any of that. In fact, I fully admitted that I'm a dope in the lab. You on the other hand blamed your professor for your inability to learn organic chemistry.

I would have to agree that it would be dishonest to change the numbers though. I'll be going out on my shield on this one. 46% error for life.

 

[orthomyxo]

759% yield.....nuff said.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

Does anyone know if there's anything wrong with keeping notes under my exam during an actual exam. Would have got a 75% but I corrected some answer to bring the exam up to an A. Sometimes I accidentally mark the wrong answer because I don't know the answer. I just don't want to get a C over a couple of silly wrong answers. I study really hard and sometimes I still don't know the answer. I'm just a really bad test taker. I think I might get in trouble if the teacher knew that I had notes under my exam.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

Poor baby. Did the TA and lab supervisor conspire against you?

Honestly, now I have no excuse to take anything you said seriously. You're talking about serious academic misconduct. It's equivalent to plagiarism, because you'd be taking credit for work that isn't your own. Science depends on accurately reported results and if you fudge your data, then you're no scientist, you're a dishonest thief. I have pretty poor lab technique too and what I've found is TAs and professors that grade labs care more about you steadily improving in lab from week to week rather than having great yields or perfect crystals in your products. You're graded more on your lab write-up and understanding rather than your manual dexterity.

you have 4 posts and you're up on a high horse? your statement is not always true. i was fortunate enough to take labs that were qualitative. many colleges (especially your research heavy ones) have very quantitative labs which require right answers and low errors and when you do a 4 hour ochem lab and your results are barely off and you then either have to except a D on the lab writeup or start the experiment completely over, you may be singing a different tune.

unless of course you have the exact same lab TA and professor as the original poster, don't act like you do.

OP you shouldn't fudge your numbers. obviously some of the posters were born in an ochem lab and do everything perfect every time. just slow down at make sure you are doing it right.

 

[IvyHopeful20]

I work in a lab. If I fudged the numbers, and got caught, my career is over. So is my PI's.

I know your Chen lab is not a peer reviewed journal but if you don't get the right numbers just explain it. At least at my school, there is little or no penalty for if you get wrong numbers and can explain it.

Hilariously, in one of my first phys labs I proved with 95% certainty that f did not equal ma. Good times writing that paper. The lab manager read it out in front of the class.

Still waiting on my Nobel prize though.

 

[TropicalKitty]

This is so disconcerting! I know everyone wants to do well in classes, but a mess up is a mess up and a cover up is bad business. It really bothers me to see how many people pull shady things to get somewhere. I really hope that this behavior doesn't continue outside of the classroom! Look at several forensic labs - like the Houston crime lab that got their accreditation pulled for this type of dishonesty (false reports and other things). Like Ivy, I too work in a lab, if I mess up I gotta own it. This makes me so sad to see how people really behave...
end of my soap box... and back to topic...

Anyway, biggest thing I learned when I was in school was being able to diagnose the problem and the same thing continues now. So, if you can work it into your lab write up the %error may not really hurt you that much. Say what things you think could have affected the outcome and how to fix it, win some points for understanding how the stuff works.

 

[TropicalKitty]

I work in a lab. If I fudged the numbers, and got caught, my career is over. So is my PI's.

I know your Chen lab is not a peer reviewed journal but if you don't get the right numbers just explain it. At least at my school, there is little or no penalty for if you get wrong numbers and can explain it.

Hilariously, in one of my first phys labs I proved with 95% certainty that f did not equal ma. Good times writing that paper. The lab manager read it out in front of the class.

Still waiting on my Nobel prize though.

I want to see this paper!

 

[Astarael]

OP you really shouldn't get into any problems with this at all. I'm not sure what your experiment was, but on a very practical note, thermometers are not that accurate. I'm guessing you were trying to figure out the enthalpy of a reaction, and there's just no way around the fact that in a chem lab, this isn't going to be accurate. Either you don't wait long enough, and you get a low temperature change, or you wait too long and some of the heat leaks out to the surroundings. I could maybe give you better advice if I knew what experiment you were doing, but unless you were using a bomb calorimeter, you shouldn't expect a lot of accuracy with a thermometer.

Moral of the story: if you were 46% off with a titration, something is wrong. 0.5 degrees with a thermometer, though, is something I don't think they can fault you for.

 

[WorldChanger36]

Is it worth it to cheat? What are you going to do when this comes up in medical school? Cheat again? Then what do you do if you don't learn it and now you have a patient's life on the line?

Don't cheat. Too many freaking people with beautiful grade do and then they wonder why the mcat score was soooo low. Ask if you can retake the lab or just take your lumps and learn some thing from it.
Just do your best. You don't have to be perfect to do well. Besides what is the worst that could happen? You get a B in a lab or maybe a C....oh snap.

 

[TTigers70]

Not to freak you out but be very careful if you will fudge your numbers. In a gen chem lab a few years back we had a lab that involved purification etc. I ended up with a relatively low percent yield but stuck to my guns. Others, however, pushed the fudge factor to the max to get up into the 90+% yield. After grading our lab write ups the professor announced that our samples were intentionally compromised and that a perfect purification would've come up in the 70s%. You can imagine what grade the folks got that had little to no experimental error present in their conclusion.

 

[kak9699]

many colleges (especially your research heavy ones) have very quantitative labs which require right answers and low errors and when you do a 4 hour ochem lab and your results are barely off and you then either have to except a D on the lab writeup or start the experiment completely over, you may be singing a different tune.

[sic]

OP you shouldn't fudge your numbers. obviously some of the posters were born in an ochem lab and do everything perfect every time. just slow down at make sure you are doing it right.

I agree with FrkyBgStok. I went to a more research intensive school, and the TA's and professors were all very concerned with our percent error and yield numbers being accurate. Low accuracy did affect our grade.

The only way to salvage things was to write long ass explanation(much like IvyHopeful20's physics lab) sections stating errors made and margins of error for various equipment. I found that I learned more about the chemistry and workings of the lab by explaining myself in the writeup. It forced me to look at each step and understand what happened and what could/did go wrong.

Cheers!

 

[MilkmanAl]

Hilariously, in one of my first phys labs I proved with 95% certainty that f did not equal ma. Good times writing that paper.

I think Lagrange beat you to that one by a couple hundred years. 😛

 

[NickNaylor]

you do what you gotta do... don't feel guilty.

People like this scare me.

 

[CaptainSSO]

People like this scare me.

Me too. At this age people's personalities are for the most part fixed (from what I've seen at least) and stuff of this nature won't stop when this person gets to the next level--e.g. maybe he'll write unneeded prescriptions; I can think of some other things. People like this will always exist, though. I know several people who changed lab numbers, cheated on tests when the professor walked out of the room, etc.

 

[getright]

In my chem labs, it's alright to have ridiculous yields and % errors. You just have to explain what the likely causes of error were in great detail. I wouldn't recommend adjusting numbers.

 

[SOcash]

Hilariously, in one of my first phys labs I proved with 95% certainty that f did not equal ma. Good times writing that paper. The lab manager read it out in front of the class.

Still waiting on my Nobel prize though.

That's hilarious. OP, don't fudge the numbers, especially if your grade isn't directly dependent on your error.

 

[Mithril]

Some of the SDNers make me laugh.

Relax, fudging organic chem lab numbers a bit is not going to make you a horrible, horrible doctor. Generally, you can still get full points in any lab course if you have an explanation for your errors.

 

[jellybean13]

Some of the SDNers make me laugh.

Relax, fudging organic chem lab numbers a bit is not going to make you a horrible, horrible doctor. Generally, you can still get full points in any lab course if you have an explanation for your errors.

👍👍

 

[apumic]

Some of the SDNers make me laugh.

Relax, fudging organic chem lab numbers a bit is not going to make you a horrible, horrible doctor. Generally, you can still get full points in any lab course if you have an explanation for your errors.

No, it may not, but it sure as heck will make that lab instructor fail your sorry a**. In gen chem I, it'll probably just be a little slap on the wrist with a lot of pts taken away but in later labs and if you get into an actual research lab, "fudging" (i.e., making up) data is a very serious offense. Sometimes, experiments simply don't work. And, honestly, if you're struggling to get good results, probably so are other students. Learn to write good discussions and to think critically about sources and effects of error. In undergrad labs, this critical thinking is much more important than your actual lab technique. Dexterity and such will improve w/ time and as you learn little "tricks" but the critical thinking takes conscious effort to improve. At least at my school, we have not emphasized this element in our labs nearly enough. It's something I am fighting to get changed. I'd like to see as much as 30-50% of students' lab grades be determined by their discussion (30% on quantitative labs and 50% on qualitative). It's really the most critical part. Calculations are usually just plug-n-chug. That's stuff you learn in lecture. Lab is about application, not plug-n-chug.

 

[BBender716]

Oh. I thought you meant if it was ok to take a dump on your lab numbers, i.e. "I just fudged myself."


Now I'm just trying to figure out what's a more serious offense...

 

[tabascosauce]

the data is what it is. you wouldnt get marked off because of the data in and of itself but how you arrived at it and what you can conclude from it is what youll be graded upon.

 

[werd]

don't pad your data to lower your error. it's a difficult thing to be caught for, but it's academic dishonesty. perhaps even more importantly it's just unethical. it seems like a small thing to you, but anyone in research considers it a huge deal, and would hang you out to dry if you got caught.

 

[Playa]

Got 46% error on my chemistry lab and can easily fix it by making a few small "adjustments." I really don't want to lose points b/c I read 25.3 degrees on my thermometer instead of 25.8. Tried really hard to do things perfect and the numbers still came out bad. I must admit I suck in the lab, heh. Still, I feel somewhat guilty about it and am afraid I might get in trouble if I change them to lower my error.

OP don't worry about it, doctors fudge numbers ALL the time. You'll feel right at home.

 

[Frazier]

 

[fizzgig]

no. if you didn't have reason to suspect the number before you got a crappy answer, then there is nothing but an unwanted result behind this. it's academic dishonesty. yes it's small as people here point out casually, but for fricks sake, have some integrity.

write up your report with the real values. state in your conclusion that you get a much more realistic and likely value using value x vs y, and say there was likely error in reading the thermometer. then at least you prove you've thought about it, like someone doing actual research might do.

 

[ReptarBar]

you guys must suck at cheating if you're actually having this dilemma.

 

[nebraskadoc]

Got 46% error on my chemistry lab and can easily fix it by making a few small "adjustments." I really don't want to lose points b/c I read 25.3 degrees on my thermometer instead of 25.8. Tried really hard to do things perfect and the numbers still came out bad. I must admit I suck in the lab, heh. Still, I feel somewhat guilty about it and am afraid I might get in trouble if I change them to lower my error.

Did the thermometer ACTUALLY say 25.8 and you accidentally put 25.3? If so, this isn't dishonesty, you just need to make the correction. Just indicate in your lab report that you misread the thermometer. Put a footnote that reads "raw data corrected due to human error" or something. I mean, as long as there is an explanation I don't think it matters.

 

[13132]

Did the thermometer ACTUALLY say 25.8 and you accidentally put 25.3? If so, this isn't dishonesty, you just need to make the correction. Just indicate in your lab report that you misread the thermometer. Put a footnote that reads "raw data corrected due to human error" or something. I mean, as long as there is an explanation I don't think it matters.

I have a hard time believing you are doing so poorly based solely on your results. Undergraduate labs focus on teaching the student how to write a report and think critically about the theory and application of the science used for the experiment. Ay my university points will be deducted (for a clearly wrong result) but it is never to extreme.

Am I in the minority here? Is the point of an undergraduate lab necessarily perfect results?!

 

[trep14]

I can't say I'd recommend changing numbers. You would get in big trouble if you got caught. I would just take the high % error and run. If you're in gen chem, it probably wont be counted against you too much (or at least it shouldn't be). I know how you feel from experience though. I remember I screwed the pooch on a section of my senior capstone and missed a simple step in the procedure and got awful readings as a result. I just had to present it as such and explain where I went wrong. I don't think they held it against me too much.

 

[trep14]

I have a hard time believing you are doing so poorly based solely on your results. Undergraduate labs focus on teaching the student how to write a report and think critically about the theory and application of the science used for the experiment. Ay my university points will be deducted (for a clearly wrong result) but it is never to extreme.

Am I in the minority here? Is the point of an undergraduate lab necessarily perfect results?!

Yup that is how my undergrad was. If your percent error was huge or you didn't get any results out of the experiment you may lose a few points, but ultimately, as long as you can apply and understand the science behind it and write a clear and concise lab report, you will still do well.

 

[WorldChanger36]

I have a hard time believing you are doing so poorly based solely on your results. Undergraduate labs focus on teaching the student how to write a report and think critically about the theory and application of the science used for the experiment. Ay my university points will be deducted (for a clearly wrong result) but it is never to extreme.

Am I in the minority here? Is the point of an undergraduate lab necessarily perfect results?!

For the most part yeah most classes in Chem I took were not big no numbers but more why you got the numbers you did. The one exception was Quantitative Analytical Chemistry which only grade on the percent yield of the experiment being accurate and precise. Of course in that class if you fudged your numbers you were guaranteed to get an abhorrent grade. It shows you to things, always report what you came up with based on the experiment and there is a reset button in science.

 

[13132]

For the most part yeah most classes in Chem I took were not big no numbers but more why you got the numbers you did. The one exception was Quantitative Analytical Chemistry which only grade on the percent yield of the experiment being accurate and precise. Of course in that class if you fudged your numbers you were guaranteed to get an abhorrent grade. It shows you to things, always report what you came up with based on the experiment and there is a reset button in science.

Ok good I was worried my school was doing me an academic inequity or something for not grading on results. Another example was my recent lab exam was a loooong essay style exam about theory and explaining experiements/IR/NMR.

I would expect your analytical class to be like that. It is a higher level course.

 

[runawayclock]

Thankfully, all of my labs were mostly dependent on the actual report rather than our yields... a lot of the times my Org lab yields would be like 500% with a melting point 50C above the expected, or 10% and perfect melting point. O___O

Labs are about going through the actual process, not what numbers you get. We were always graded most heavily on the discussion part (AKA why you f'ed up) anyway.

 

[CaptainSSO]

Some of the SDNers make me laugh.

Relax, fudging organic chem lab numbers a bit is not going to make you a horrible, horrible doctor. Generally, you can still get full points in any lab course if you have an explanation for your errors.

Maybe it won't make you a "horrible, horrible doctor," but it says a lot about your character. Science is not making up numbers. You think it stops here? There have been cases of important research being fabricated, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Sudb%C3%B8.

 

[werd]

Thankfully, all of my labs were mostly dependent on the actual report rather than our yields... a lot of the times my Org lab yields would be like 500% with a melting point 50C above the expected, or 10% and perfect melting point. O___O

Labs are about going through the actual process, not what numbers you get. We were always graded most heavily on the discussion part (AKA why you f'ed up) anyway.

in my freshman chem lab course (quantitative chem) we were graded out of a possible 12 points: 5 pts for how close your average value was to the correct answer, 5 pts for how close your closest value was to the correct answer, and 2 pts for how small your standard deviation was. wrong answer = poor grade. we didn't know the supposed correct answers during the lab. the lab part of the course was like 1/3 the total grade. i was a biochem major though.

 

[runawayclock]

in my freshman chem lab course (quantitative chem) we were graded out of a possible 12 points: 5 pts for how close your average value was to the correct answer, 5 pts for how close your closest value was to the correct answer, and 2 pts for how small your standard deviation was. wrong answer = poor grade. we didn't know the supposed correct answers during the lab. the lab part of the course was like 1/3 the total grade. i was a biochem major though.

****ty. For both my Gen Chem and Org Chem courses, it was maybe 1~2 points out of 10 that was for the actual yield. Physics labs were a bit more i think, but they were also a lot more straightforward.

 

[Prateek]

Not to freak you out but be very careful if you will fudge your numbers. In a gen chem lab a few years back we had a lab that involved purification etc. I ended up with a relatively low percent yield but stuck to my guns. Others, however, pushed the fudge factor to the max to get up into the 90+% yield. After grading our lab write ups the professor announced that our samples were intentionally compromised and that a perfect purification would've come up in the 70s%. You can imagine what grade the folks got that had little to no experimental error present in their conclusion.

This happens at my university too and it's a beautiful tactic.

And it absolutely shocks me how much people are scared to admit they made a mistake.

 

[necoli]

in my freshman chem lab course (quantitative chem) we were graded out of a possible 12 points: 5 pts for how close your average value was to the correct answer, 5 pts for how close your closest value was to the correct answer, and 2 pts for how small your standard deviation was. wrong answer = poor grade. we didn't know the supposed correct answers during the lab. the lab part of the course was like 1/3 the total grade. i was a biochem major though.

sigh.... quant lab.

 

[ASU2013]

I'd be careful with that.
My school we hand in a carbon copy of our lab work, and for all my other classes when you hand in hand written stuff they make photocopies of it.

 

[RynoTheGuy]

you have 4 posts and you're up on a high horse? your statement is not always true. i was fortunate enough to take labs that were qualitative. many colleges (especially your research heavy ones) have very quantitative labs which require right answers and low errors and when you do a 4 hour ochem lab and your results are barely off and you then either have to except a D on the lab writeup or start the experiment completely over, you may be singing a different tune.

unless of course you have the exact same lab TA and professor as the original poster, don't act like you do.

OP you shouldn't fudge your numbers. obviously some of the posters were born in an ochem lab and do everything perfect every time. just slow down at make sure you are doing it right.

Because we all know that post count = intelligence or validity in making statements 🙄

 

[wristbandMD]

I wouldn't fudge them. Just explain in it the write up. My first lab this quarter we had a 81% error and I still got 100% on the lab, all because I wrote a long discussion on possible human and experimental errors. The group across from me got a smaller number % error, but didn't explain why and lost points.

 

[UpQuark]

Funniest/scariest crap happened to me. In organic lab we were doing the grignard reaction, and apparently I somehow fudged it up so bad that I ended up with a golden liquid rather than solid white crystals. Anyways, we had to compare our product with some stock sample product to check for purity using TLC plates. Me being so brilliant, I "borrowed" some of the stock product and air dried it to obtain the white crystalline grignard product.

The following week, as we were turning the product in, we get an email from organic professor saying that some of the sample was missing (some other people had this same brilliant idea as i did 😛). Apparently she added a preservative with the stock product and she could tell if we took it by a certain peak on the H-NMR. Needless to say, we were scared S***less and I disposed of the sample and turned in my golden elixir.

EDIT: In the end, the results are what you get. Explain errors in your lab report and it will cover everything. It's not always about getting the best results, but how to interpret them.

 

[MisterVeil]

There are some ridiculous, melodramatic posts here.

"If you're working with a patient as a doctor, would you fudge that too?"

Christ, it's an undergraduate chem lab. It doesn't make one lick of difference if you fudge numbers. He's not working in a lab for a professor, where results could be published. He's not working as a doctor with patients. It's an undergraduate. Chem. Lab. Please have some perspective. Just because somebody fudges numbers in an undergrad chem lab, does not say anything about any other situation. Does not say anything about their "character" or what they think of "science."

This is coming from someone who didn't fudge numbers. I just have perspective. Note: this is not to say that fudging numbers is "okay" or that it's "wrong", one way or the other. But some of the comments in this thread are just absurd.

 

[Cleavername]

I work in a lab. If I fudged the numbers, and got caught, my career is over. So is my PI's.

I know your Chen lab is not a peer reviewed journal but if you don't get the right numbers just explain it. At least at my school, there is little or no penalty for if you get wrong numbers and can explain it.

Hilariously, in one of my first phys labs I proved with 95% certainty that f did not equal ma. Good times writing that paper. The lab manager read it out in front of the class.

Still waiting on my Nobel prize though.

I think Lagrange beat you to that one by a couple hundred years. 😛

i think some where along the line in bio lab course i was taught that you can't prove science, you can only support it with heavy and convincing science. its like an experiment shown to work most of the times, but if just 1 in 1,000,000 doesn't work out, it means that its not proven. proven is if it works, every time, all the time.

 

[TriagePreMed]

LOL I've been tempted once or twice like everyone, but instead, I just make a lengthy error analysis discussion. It usually saves me the points.

 

[hiyaman]

I work in a lab. If I fudged the numbers, and got caught, my career is over. So is my PI's.

I know your Chen lab is not a peer reviewed journal but if you don't get the right numbers just explain it. At least at my school, there is little or no penalty for if you get wrong numbers and can explain it.

Hilariously, in one of my first phys labs I proved with 95% certainty that f did not equal ma. Good times writing that paper. The lab manager read it out in front of the class.

Still waiting on my Nobel prize though.

This. And Lol.

To the OP I don't believe if you explain what possible errors could have led to your inaccuracies there will be few pts taken off especially if its an organic lab. If it's an analytical chem lab then the consequences will probably be worse lol.

In organic lab I got 200% yield once, it was strange because I vacummed dried my product on the filter for at least 5-8 minutes.

 

[echolalia16]

If you fudge your numbers you can't put anything in the 10pt error report question.

At my school we weren't punished for getting poor data. If the TA signed off on our work it was fine to use in homework.

 

[IvyHopeful20]

i think some where along the line in bio lab course i was taught that you can't prove science, you can only support it with heavy and convincing science. its like an experiment shown to work most of the times, but if just 1 in 1,000,000 doesn't work out, it means that its not proven. proven is if it works, every time, all the time.

Of course not - science is not math. Hence the 95% certainty.


Also, I still don't know what was wrong in my F does not equal MA report. I think the machine was calibrated incorrectly. In my lab report, I actually came up with a new formula and showed why the Earth should collapse under it's own weight. The prof. thought it was pretty funny and unique. Got 100%.

So to the OP, even if you don't go all out, professors will appreciate it if you put actual thought into your report.