Just as important as selecting the proper notebook for
recording your scientific experiments is how to take good notes. Even an experienced scientist can benefit
from reviewing good notebook keeping techniques from time to time. In this How-To we talk about what should go
into your notebook, what shouldn’t and how to make a good entry in your
notebook.
What your notebook is for
Your lab notebook serves three important purposes:
- A
record of important procedures for experiments you have developed during
your experimentation.
- A
record of the results of experiments that you have performed.
- The
means to reproduce the results of your experiments by following the
procedures you have developed at another time or place.
A good notebook is not simply a list of results of
experiments but allows you to develop methods that you can use for further
experimentation and would allow someone else to reproduce your results and
understand why you did what you did in your experiments.
What goes into your notebook
- Page
numbers – if your notebook doesn’t already have them add them to the upper
outside corner of each page. These
are important so you can refer back to frequently used tables, procedures,
or results. You can also be sure
that there are no missing pages (leading to missing steps) if following a
past procedure.
- A
table of contents – The first few pages should be reserved for this, it
allows you to quickly find the information you are looking for and makes
the book a useful reference. Later
on you will be able to find a particular experiment without having to read
every page.
- Dates
– Every entry, or at the very least every day that you record data should
be dated, this allows you to more easily.
- Unusual
conditions during an experiment – Sometimes things go differently than we
plan and we have something unusual happen during our experiments some of
the things you might want to look for and record are:
Strong
storms (ie. behavior of an observed animal may be atypical)
Extremes
in temperature or humidity (many instruments and materials are sensitive
to temperature and humidity)
Power
failures (if your experiment requires power)
Something
is went wrong or was unexpected (ie. you notice that the apparatus is no
longer working at some point during your experiment)
Experimenter
fatigue may impair your ability to make good observations
- Reasons
for decisions made during an experiment – What we did isn’t always good
enough, why we did what we did is just as important to record. Make sure that you record the whys and
not just the whats.
- Contact
information for people that provided you with information or supplies –
They may be able to provide you with some materials in the future or to
give you more information later on should you need it. It is important to give credit where it
is due as well.
- Any
information that you might need to reproduce the results of an experiment
– Your notebook alone should be sufficient for someone to reproduce your
experiment. Aim to be as complete
as possible, we talk about what an entry for an experiment should look
like below.
What stays out of your notebook
- Notes
for anything that is not directly related to your experiments – These
might be confusing to someone trying to reproduce the experiments, may
make it harder for you to follow what you were doing later on and are
simply not good for organization.
- Rude
or offensive comments – Remember, someone else may be reading your
notebook some day. Do not describe
people using derogatory stereotypes or use insulting, inflammatory or
vulgar language in your notes.
- Unsubstantiated
or subjective statements or opinions – Statements like “This was fun!” or “Dogs are ugly” and even “The weather
was pleasant” are opinions, not facts or objective measures. Not everything that we might want to
record is easily categorized as objective or subjective. Make sure that you support any statement
with arguments to back it up.
Further Reading
This is such an important topic that there are many good
websites that can give you more pointers.
Rather than try to reproduce everything that they do here, visit these
other sites to learn more.
This site at the University of Pittsburg
talks about what a good notebook entry should include in describing an
experiment.
This article by King Lee from the Drug Information Journal describes why it
is important to keep a good lab notebook with a particular slant towards what
is needed in a regulated environment (pharmaceuticals research). [Note:
On visiting this page recently this site did try to redirect my browser
at one point, make sure your pop-up blocker and anti-virus software is up to
date.]
This page at Pennsylvania State
University is a brief synopsis of
what should be done in a good notebook, this also discusses electronic
notebooks.
This pdf file from the Mechanical Engineering department at MIT describes
how to keep a good notebook with example pages.
Another page from Wellesley College
on how to keep a good lab notebook with example pages with an emphasis on organizing
your thoughts before you begin an experiment.
Another great discussion on how to keep a good notebook.
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