The Laboratory Notebook and Experiment Reports

For all experimental work, students are required to accurately and clearly record their procedures, observations, data, and results in their laboratory notebook on an ongoing basis while in the laboratory. To assist the students with the task of properly completing their notebooks, the audience has been identified as (1) themselves, as they will need the information in the notebook when writing up report sheets or formal reports and (2) other students with similar chemistry background who may want to repeat the experiment. 

The conference report from the Crystal City III Workshop outlines the documentation requirements in detail [10]. The degree of documentation should be sufficient to recreate the validation. Prior to initiating a prestudy validation, an appropriate standard operating procedure or a detailed validation plan should be written. This plan can be a stand-alone document or can be contained in a laboratory notebook or some comparable format. The documentation should clearly state the intended use of the method and a summary of the performance parameters to be validated. The plan should include a summary of the proposed experiments and the target acceptance criteria for each performance parameter evaluated. 

When you begin the actual experiment, keep your notebook nearby so you will be able to record those operations you perform. When you are working in the laboratory, the notebook serves as a place in which to record a rough transcript of your experimental method. Data from actual weighings, volume measurements, and determinations of physical consfants are also noted. This section of your notebook should not be prepared in advance. The purpose is not to write a recipe but rather to record what you did and what you observed. These observations will help you write reports without resorting to memory. They will also help you or other workers repeat the experiment in as nearly as possible the same way. The sample notebook pages found in Figures 2.2 and 2.3 illustrate the type of data and observations that should be written in your notebook. 

A correct, careful, and purposeful recording of results in laboratory notebooks is part of systematic work. In all instances it is preferable to record the results of experiments in great detail than to rely on the memory and oral reports. Imperfect records may lead to the necessity of repeating certain tests and hence to time losses and an unnecessary consumption of the sample. 

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