Santiago Schnell

“ Your lab notebook is part of the scientific legacy of your laboratory. Therefore, you need to protect your lab notebook. Paper lab notebooks should not be taken home. When you leave the laboratory each day, you should leave your lab notebook in a location where your research supervisor can find it. Ideally, you should lock it in the same place every day. If your research institution or lab supervisor allows, you will be able to make copies of your lab notebook, but the original belongs to the institution that paid your salary and handled your research funds. ”

“ Scientists should record every experiment, every result, every research meeting, notes from seminars, research conference calls, thoughts related to their research problem—all of these items go into their lab notebooks. In a very real way, the lab notebook is a chronological log of everything scholarly a scientist does. Each lab notebook entry should be written immediately after the activity or work was performed. ”

“ Record All Scientific Activities in Your Lab Notebook There are scientists who believe that lab notebook records should be limited to wet or dry lab experimental entries. However, the intellectual activity of a theoretical scientist is not limited to experiments to test hypotheses. Thinking about the possible directions of your research and theorizing about how a system works is often how scientific breakthroughs are made. ”

“ Make the Habit of Keeping the Lab Notebook in Your Desk You need to keep your lab notebook at hand, and write things down while you are working. If you rely on your recollection to remember a good idea, a suggestion during a meeting, or an important step in your data analysis or model simulation, you can find yourself in a situation where you no longer remember that critical thought. ”

“ Leading research institutions, research and development divisions in companies, and universities have comprehensive lab notebook policies, which research laboratories should implement. In the absence of an institutional policy, your research group should have a policy to explain to all team members the process for daily record-keeping and maintaining laboratory records. ”

“ Nowadays, there are version control systems to track the evolution of algorithms and computer programs or changes in scripts. Bitbucket, Git, Subversion, and Mercurial are among the most widely used version-control systems. You should use a standardized name system to identify changes. If you have a paper lab notebook, you should record the name and location of the scripts. Those using electronic lab notebooks can add links to each version of their scripts or programs. ”

“ If you use paper pads or other assorted pieces of paper to write down your ideas or take notes during meetings and seminars, you may lose important items or waste too much time looking for ideas later. ”