Lab Notebook Guidelines: Writing and Organizing Effective Scientific Records, Lab Reports of Materials science

Download Lab Notebook Guidelines: Writing and Organizing Effective Scientific Records and more Lab Reports Materials science in PDF only on Docsity! LAB NOTEBOOK GUIDELINES Summarized and expanded by P. F. Mendez from: Rod Beavon, http://www.rod.beavon.clara.net/lab_book.htm Faraday’s hand-written notebooks…have long been of interest to historians and philosophers of science because of the extraordinarily direct insight they give into the way his thinking developed…. They are also remarkable in the amount of detail that they give about the design and setting up of experiments, interspersed with comments about their outcome and thoughts of a more philosophical kind. All are couched in plain language, with many vivid phrases of delightful spontaneity…. Peter Day, ‘The Philosopher’s Tree: A Selection of Michael Faraday’s Writings’ Writing the Laboratory Notebook The Laboratory Notebook is a vital part of industrial and academic research, and indeed can be required by law to establish, for example, patent rights. How much should I write? There is a balance between working much and having poor records, and recording much while accomplishing little actual work. This balance must be accomplished by practicing, until one is satisfied both of the productivity achieved and of the quality of the records. Some suggestions are easy to implement: • If you are idle while waiting for an experiment to be completed: then put the time to good use by improving your notes! (there’s no tradeoff with productivity here) • Always record quantities that you measure, and remember to include the units. • Always have a photograph and description of your set-up, with a marker that will help understand the size-scale. Perhaps the most difficult, but most rewarding activity, is to try to anticipate the evolution of the experiment. You should definitely write any deviations from what you expect. However, you must be careful not to bias your experiments by discarding data or twisting it into what you expected. Plain language The lab notebook must be written in plain language. The whole point of a laboratory notebook is that it should: • say exactly what was done, and when; • make clear who did it; • enable someone else to do the same thing at some future date; • be durable and verifiable. Hardware Laboratory notebooks should be hardback bound notebooks – you can stick worksheets in where needed. Writing must be done in ink. Black ballpoint pen is best, pencil should not be used for anything. Organizing your notebook Anyone should be able to pick up your notebook and understand what you have written. This must be the main thing - you are writing for someone else. If the writing is clear to them, then it certainly will be to you. Achieving this requires some organization as well as a certain style. Title page: Give a page or use the cover to state your name, address (you might lose the book) and a brief indication of its purpose - 'Foundry Lab Notebook', for example. Table of contents: Give two pages to the Contents so that you can list the experiments and find them easily when needed. But you will need to.... Number the pages: Tedious but essential. Do it when the notebook is new. Some notebooks come with the pages already numbered. Table of abbreviations: They save time and effort. If you use them, give a table to explain them. Good notebook practices Experimental Introduction The introduction to your experimental report should have the following: • Title of the experiment - and this should appear on any added pieces of paper, graphs, whatever, that are pasted into the notebook. The title should be concise and descriptive. • Statement of the problem or task - short and to the point. The statement responds to the question “What aam I trying to accomplish?.” • Date. In industry or research this is exceedingly important, and may be in your work too. Write the date unambiguously and include the year - for example January 12, 2006. Do not write 1/12/2006 since it can cause confusion with the European system… is it January 12th, or December 1st? Experimental plan This is the part of the account that tells what you are going to do. It may be that you have detailed instructions already, in which case they can be written or pasted into the notebook. All information must be recorded in your lab notebook, even if you have handouts with blank spaces to be filled in. If you are planning an investigation you will have to write out your own plan. If so: • use simple, direct statements or a bulleted or numbered list of instructions; • look forwards to what you intend to do - do not repeat the introduction; • comment on any special features of the materials to be used - perhaps they require special storage or handling, or there may be several varieties of the compound available (e.g. linseed oil vs. boiled linseed oil). Such factors are very important and must be recorded.