RESEARCH LABORATORY NOTEBOOKS

One of the important skills that any scientist or scientist in training can learn is the keeping of careful records of their work.  Most often this involves keeping a laboratory notebook.  In patent applications and law suits this record can serve as a legal document, so in an industrial setting these notebooks are usually dated, signed and witnessed.

Although the specific types of information that get recorded vary from discipline to discipline, many of the general principles are the same.  A general guide for you to follow is that someone with your level of experience should be able to repeat the experiments that you do from the information in your notebook, and be able note similarities and differences between their experiment and yours based on your observations.

There is not one right way to keep a notebook or organize the information, but they should be organized and neat enough for someone else to read and follow.  You should number all pages (only the front – I prefer that you only write on one side of each page) date all pages (multiple times if you only do a little on a given day), start new experiments on a new page and save a couple of pages at the beginning of your notebook for a table of contents.  I would like you to use the following format.

1.)  Reaction and Data Table:  The reaction consists of the balanced chemical reaction plus any solvents, catalysts etc. with the structures of reagents used and the expected product.  The data table is organized under the reaction and includes the amounts of materials used and the information used to arrive at these amounts.  This may include any or all of the following:  molecular weight, density, volume, grams, moles, equivalents.  The table should also mention the source (which may be of the chemicals used with any purity information.  Some people like to include safety information as well, or specific safety issues can be included in the procedure portion.  The complete data table does not need to be included if you are repeating a reaction, but that reaction should be referenced.  Even if you are repeating a reaction, it is a good idea to include it every few reactions, so that it is easy to find.

2.)  Purpose and Reference(s):  The purpose always seemed like a dumb thing to me when I was in school because it was always intuitively obvious.  After I had been doing research for a while, I started looking back in my old notebooks and discovered that I often had what looked to be identical experiments one after the other.  I knew that when I did the experiment it was because I had learned something in the previous one (which usually did not work), but I could not tell what the change was or why I had made it.  References may be journal articles from which you are borrowing a procedure or they may be old notebook pages that you are modifying or using.

3.)  Procedure and Observations:  The procedure should be written in third person past tense.  It is a record of what you do as you do it.  You should not trust to your memory; the procedure needs to be written as it is done.  Again, there should be enough detail for the experiment to be repeated (for example by a new research student starting next year).  Observations include quantitative (e.g. times, temperatures, amounts) and qualitative (appearance, change in appearance, change in temp. (if not measured)).  This section might include detailed experimental set-up information, which might include a drawing.

4.)  Product Characterization:  This section will include all characterization data.  Often this is included in the procedure, but if complete spectroscopic characterization is being done, it is more convenient to group this together in a separate section (often on a separate page).  This should include information on the equipment used and the details associated with collecting the data.  Many of these tools are now computerized, so the appropriate file information should also be included.  An interpretation of the characterization data should also be provided here.  For example:  The "infrared spectrum had a strong absorbance at 1650 cm-1 which is typical of a diaryl ketone – this is consistent with the structure of our desired product."

In order to be able to easily track spectra your samples and the resulting spectra should be identified based on the notebook page where they were generated.  Each of you will have a laboratory notebook which will be identified by your initials followed by a number to indicate if it is your first, second, third notebook etc.  e.g RK1-xx where xx refers to the page number of the notebook.  All samples and spectra should be identified in this way.  When you make a new product and you begin to characterize it you should obtain a new file folder and label it with the sample identification.  Include on the front of this file a checklist of characterizations that need to be done.  For an organic compound this will include 1H NMR, 13C NMR, IR, MS, UV-VIS, MP and in some cases others.  For polymers this will include 1H NMR, 13C NMR, IR, DSC, Molecular Weight and possible others.  You will certainly not do all of these for every reaction your run, but if you run a reaction that successfully generates a new compound then you will be expected to fully characterize this compound and collect all the important characterization data in the file.

In general, characterization files and notebooks should not go home with you.  The obvious exception to this is when you are writing a progress report or final report.  However, all notebooks, spectra etc. need to be left with me when you finish your research career at WSU.

5.)  Conclusion:  This section should also include a final conclusion regarding the reaction, which would include percentage yield information and purity.  It may also include suggestions for further experiments (usually modifications to improve results based on difficulties encountered during this experiment).  The conclusion is the place to evaluate the reaction and determine what (if anything) needs changed.