The Laboratory Notebook
Experimental work must be recorded. Failures and successes must be tracked. The laboratory notebook is the journal of a
scientist. It is through this notebook
that others can obtain a glimpse of your work through your eyes. This is the medium that documents your
experimental scientific history.
A good laboratory notebook must provide enough
information to enable another person to repeat the experiment, in its
entirety. There is no one style that is
used by all scientists, but all of the different organizational approaches meet
the following criteria.
·
Legible
– The notebook will not be perfectly neat, but it must be neat enough so it can
be read by someone other than the author.
This
also
includes creating a table of contents.
·
Permanent
– The notebook its self should be a bound text. All writing should be in pen and even crossed out items should be
legible.
·
Complete
– chemicals, equipment, units, diagrams, procedures, computer programs, references,
etc.
·
Narrative
– The notebook should tell a story. Why
are you doing this experiment? What are you doing? What happened? What are
the
conclusions? What is the
explanation?
Throughout your academic experience you will be
exposed to several laboratory notebook methodologies. In time, you will develop a style that works well for you.
The lab notebook should have all of its pages
numbered (Do not number the back of each page.) and include a table of contents
in the front. The lab notebook is the ONLY
place you should be writing anything down.
Use the front of each page as your official notebook and the back of
each page for quick notes or things you wish to look into.
All sections up through and including the “Purpose”
should be completed before beginning the experiment. (If you do not know who your partner will be, leave that area
blank.)
An instructor must initial the lab notebook before
you leave the lab. Do not attempt to
get an initial until you clean up your work area.
Lab notebooks should include
the following sections:
Experiment
Title
Date
Partner
Name(s)
Introduction
This section should include background information. Do not copy directly from your lab instructions, summarize and include the information you believe to be significant. This is a good place to include information regarding specific chemical hazards, CRC data on a compound, etc.
Purpose
The goal and reason for completing the
experiment. What are you trying to
accomplish?
Procedure & Data Collection
This should include a step-by-step description of what
you did, the data collected along the way and a diagram of the apparatus used
in the experiment. Be sure to include computer file names of data sets.
Data Analysis
Included here would be all calculations, explanation of calculations (if not included in the introduction), spreadsheets, graphs, tables, etc. Attach the computer-generated materials to your lab notebook. (If a portion of the page sticks out, that is okay.) Be sure to include computer file names for any graph, table, spreadsheet, etc. Another important thing to look out for here is significant digits.
Questions
If a given lab experiment contains questions include
both the question and your answer. There are two reasons for this
section in a lab write-up. First, it requires that you sift through
experimental data to find specific information and present it in a clear and
understandable way. The second purpose is to initiate the “thinking” process
about what you did and possibly find additional outside information pertaining
to the experiment.
Conclusion
Describe your final results. How do your results
compare to published values? Was the lab successful? Did you run into any
issues while completing the lab? What
tips do you recommend if the lab were repeated? (It is your responsibility to look up the published values, if
useful/needed for the experiment.)
References
Any
and all references should be listed.
Updated
on 12-19-03 by Rebecca Sunderman