Instructions

Our fearless leader says: "I've never been unhappy that I wrote down something that I didn't need. I've often been unhappy that I didn't write down something that I needed later."

General requirements

    1. All members are required to keep records of their activities for the purpose of improving our knowledge. This notebook can be either electronic or in a physical lab notebook.

    2. The records should be readable by someone else without your needing to be present to explain the contents.

    3. The records should contain enough detail so that someone could repeat your work.

    4. We should keep detailed records of all experiments, construction projects, computer installations, etc.

Rules of thumb

    1. At the beginning of each experiment or construction project, one should include the date and a description of the purpose of the activity.

    2. Experiments should include reference to experimental animals in the form of a number.

    3. If you wish to reference a protocol in the lab, please include the date and/or revision number of the protocol.

Electronic Notebooks

    1. Electronic notebooks need to have the same detail as a physical notebook.

    2. Electronic notebooks need to be posted on the lab's electronic notebook web page so that all lab members can read them. It is not necessary (and often not desirable) for all members to be able to write to these notebooks. The easiest way to allow others to read your lab notebooks is to create the notebook as a spreadsheet in Google docs, or to upload a document to Google Docs, and set the "Share" option to "Anyone with the link". Then, go to your notebook page on the website and add a link to that Google Doc.

    3. Lab notebooks can be linked to other pages on the lab website, but all notebooks should have an link in the user's lab notebook page.

Physical Notebooks

    1. Request notebook from a senior lab member (See Vikko) to be assigned a physical notebook: Lab Notebook Assignment Sheet

    2. The records should be readable by someone else without your needing to be present to explain the contents. See Sarah Richards 2016 as an example of a superb lab notebook!

    3. The records should contain enough detail so that someone could repeat your work.

    4. We should keep detailed records of all experiments, construction projects, computer installations, etc.

  1. Return physical notebooks at the end of its life span.

Examples

    1. Steve's experiment log template (be sure to save a copy if you use it!).

    2. An example of an experiment Steve did (okay level of detail, not exemplary): 2007-02-21

    3. Jenn's electronic lab notebook. Useful probably for the possibilities of non-traditional organization in an electronic format, but note that there are some big gaps where things obviously happened but were not written down. LET THIS BE A LESSON THAT SOMETIMES IT'S BETTER TO HAVE A PAPER BOOK RIGHT THERE, SO YOU DON'T FORGET TO WRITE DOWN WHOLE DAYS OF INFORMATION WHEN YOUR MIND IS ON OTHER THINGS.

    4. Some examples from one of Jenn's paper notebooks. To avoid the inevitable frustration of trying to make a table of contents before the contents are set, this TOC was written backwards chronologically, in the back of the book.