APPENDIX II. HOW TO USE YOUR LABORATORY NOTEBOOK
Your Laboratory Notebook is an original record of your
work. You will be using it from day to
day, but it will also be preserved, not only for future reference but also for
legal purposes: it may be presented in a Federal Court as evidence in a patent
suit. Therefore, the instructions below
should be followed to insure that your records will be adequate both from a reference
and a legal standpoint.
1. Get your
notebook from your Teaching Assistant, and have it formally charged out to
you. Turn it in when it is full, and
get a new one. Notebooks which have
been properly indexed and identified may be charged out for subsequent
reference. Turn in all outstanding
notebooks with the final report.
2. Keep only
one notebook in active use at one time, since your notebook serves also as a
day book, a daily record of your work, which could assume great importance in a
patent suit. However, you may use
separate Laboratory Notebooks to record results from a routine test which is
generating voluminous data or to record data from a continuous operation, such
as a pilot plant run.
3. As you
start each new page in your notebook, write at the top of the page: the
date, (day, month, year), the Experiment Number, and the subject.
4. For each new
problem, record the following information:
a. A brief statement of the problem.
b. Sketches or flow diagrams of important
apparatus other than that described and
used in standardized tests, such as ASTM procedures.
c. A brief, unabbreviated description of new,
not previously coded, materials used.
5. For each new
experiment or run, start a new page and record:
a. The object of the experiment.
b. Changes made in the equipment used.
c. The source and physical or chemical
characteristics of raw materials used, unless
previously given or a standard material.
d. Operating details, such as amounts of
material, temperatures, pressures, reaction
times, rates of flow, yields, etc.
e. Observations, including a statement of
results.
f. Complete and adequate cross-referencing of
samples submitted for physical or
analytical tests.
g. Calculations made from data.
6. Report your
results in an objective, factual way that will be clearly understood by someone
who refers to your work at a later date.
Do not use unnecessary, detrimental statements, such as “N.G.,” “not so
hot”, “results unpromising,” “stains badly,” etc. Such statements are too vague to be useful in evaluating research
results.
7. Include
complete cross-references to relevant pages of other notebooks or project
reports. Cross-reference samples
submitted for physical or chemical tests by notebook page numbers.
8. If you use
abbreviations, define them clearly in the same notebook.
9. If you use
trade names of materials, provide full information on the source, nature, and,
if possible, chemical composition of the product. Manufacturer’s Lot Numbers or Batch Numbers are very helpful.
10. Do not
erase an error. Draw a line through it
(so that it can still be read), and insert the correction next to it.
11. Sign and
date the page at the bottom after all other entries have been made.
a. The experimenter should “sign” if the
written material results from experimental work; the writer
should “sign” if other written material is entered.
b. If you believe that an invention or novel
idea is involved, have the line “Understood and Witnessed” signed
by an independent technically qualified witness
who has actually observed the critical features of the experiment, whenever
an experiment is involved; or who has read and understood the written
material when no experimental work is involved. In case of a patent action, this will
provide a witness who can qualify in court as technically competent,
and who can testify that you have actually done what you said you did.
12. Prepare an
index of the notebook contents on a page provided for that purpose.
13. You should
recognize that the cost of a laboratory notebook is negligibly small compared
with the cost of lost data carelessly recorded on paper towels, old envelopes,
and scraps of paper. A well-used, dirty
notebook which contains a record of all your experiments and results is far
more valuable than a very clean, but skimpily filled out, notebook.
PLEASE NOTE
YOUR TA WILL GIVE YOU A NOTEBOOK TO USE. TURN IT IN WITH YOUR FINAL REPORT.