Example of a Laboratory Notebook Entry

Always write and organize your work so that someone else could come into the laboratory and repeat your directions without confusion or uncertainty. Completeness and legibility are key factors. 

Most of you are newcomers to the organic laboratory, and the reactions you wiU be performing have probably been worked out and checked in detail. Because of this, your instructor may not require you to keep your notebook in such a meticulous fashion. For example, when you describe the procedure (item 6), it may be acceptable to make a clear reference to the material in the laboratory manual and to note any modifications or deviations from the prescribed procedure. In some cases, it may be more practical to use an outline method. In any event, the following example shoirld be studied carefully. It may be used as a reference when detailed records are important in your work. It is more important to record what you observed and what you actually did, than to record what you were supposed to observe and what you were supposed to do. 

Because of its length, the example here is typed. Notebooks are usually handwritten. Many chemists, however, now use computers to record their data. 

Diphenyl succinate is being prepared as one of a series of dicarboxyUc add esters that are to be investigated as growth stimulants for selected fungi species. 

This procedure was adapted from that reported by Daub, G. H., and Johnson, W. S. Organic Syntheses, Wiley New York, 1963 Collect. Vol. IV, p. 390. 

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