Laboratory Notebook

The following is a rather rough guide to promote some uniformity in the keeping of your laboratory notebooks. If followed, it should produce a set of notebooks that will be easier for your instructor to grade; and useful to you in subsequent courses and/or future jobs.

Obtain the, hard-covered 7 1/4 by 9 1/4 inch, BOUND notebook.

At the beginning of each notebook, several pages should be left for a "Table of Contents", which should be up-dated with each experiment!!

Entries should be made with a ball point pen as the work is being done. Any changes should be made by drawing one line through the error, and substituting the correct entry. DO NOT OBLITERATE THE ORIGINAL ENTRY.

Formal entries are made on the right-hand pages. Left-hand pages may be used for all informal records; e.g. tares, gross and net weights, incidental remarks, calculations, molecular weights, reminders, special precautions, etc.

With adjustments to fit the particular experiment, your entries should include:

1. Experiment number, title, and date begun.(First line)

2. Introduction - A BRIEF paragraph telling why we are doing this experiment. Where applicable include equations for all reactions, mechanisms.

3. Procedure - Brief intelligible sentences telling WHAT WAS DONE, and HOW IT WAS DONE. Scientific reports are usually written in PAST TENSE, THIRD PERSON, PASSIVE VOICE. The phantom "experimenter" or "researcher" or "student" is no longer acceptable. Above all, DON'T REGURGITATE NOR PARAPHRASE THE INSTRUCTIONS!! We don't want to read the same thing repeatedly!! neatness, spelling, and grammar count!

For example the procedure used to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is given in this manner below:

Two pieces of white bread were placed on a plate. Peanut butter was spread evenly with a knife on one piece of bread. Grape jelly was spread evenly with a knife on the other piece of bread. The bread containing the peanut butter was placed atop the other piece of bread so that the jelly and peanut butter merged. The crusts were removed from all four sides of the newly formed sandwich. The sandwich was cut from corner to corner yielding two triangular pieces.

4. Data - TABULATE WHEN POSSIBLE for clarity of presentation. Include your theoretical yield, actual yield, observed and literature m.p. and/or b.p.

5. Conclusion - a brief summary statement regarding your results. The conclusion should answer the questions set forth in the Introduction.

THE BOTTOM LINE FOR ANY WRITE-UP: It should be an honest and accurate record of your work; and clear enough to enable you (or another reader) to reproduce the experiment and obtain comparable results.

YOUR NOTEBOOK MUST NEVER BE TAKEN OUT OF THE LABORATORY!! Keep the notebook into the box labeled for your section. Your instructor will grade your notebook periodically. If it is missing, or not up to date, you will receive a "zero" for that experiment. Laboratory Report Forms are provided for you to turn in for each experiment. These should be an accurate representation of what you have written in your notebook, and they form the primary basis for grading that experiment. When returned these should be kept under separate cover for your reference and edification. DO NOT LEAVE THEM IN YOUR NOTEBOOK!! (NOTE: Questions answered on the Laboratory Report Forms need not be recopied into the notebook.)