three years of method development threads, summarised so you do not have to read them
three years of method development threads, summarised so you do not have to read them. Making the case below, and I expect to lose some of it in the comments. Started reporting my own integrations with the baseline choice stated. Arguments in my threads dropped by about half. Ran a blank after a high-concentration…
Reading a trace posted here, in the order I actually look at things.
Axes first — if the wavelength and the time axis are not labelled, I stop. Then the baseline: where has it been drawn, and does the drawing absorb anything. Then peak shape: fronting, tailing, a shoulder that never resolves. Then the blank, if one was run, for carryover.
Only after all of that do I look at the percentage, and by then I usually know how much weight it deserves. The number is the last thing on the page and the first thing everybody argues about, which is exactly backwards.
reproducibility beats resolution if you only get one of them
Do you have the mass, or only the UV trace?
214nm sees the peptide bond, 280nm sees the aromatics
Carryover from a previous high-concentration injection looks exactly like a small impurity. The blank injection is four minutes and it removes the ambiguity entirely.
Bought a second-hand instrument and learned more in six months of fixing it than in three years of reading traces.