Contents of a Laboratory Notebook

The Institute for Micromanufacturing will provide you with a log book, which you should use liberally to write down important information. Some suggested types of information are:

1. The date of the entry, along with your signature.

2. A record of daily activities on the project

3. Summaries of important information you have learned through the literature, contacts, or other sources

4. Your own ideas and thoughts

5. Photographs and drawings of prototypes and experimental setups.

6. Calculations that are related to your work

7. A description of any experiments that you are doing, including protocols, instrumentation and materials used.

8. Data that you have collected in testing your product. Make liberal log entries. You never know what information you will need to look up at a later time. Use your log book as a tool. Log books that are merely diary entries are not sufficient.

Each of these is important for two reasons. 1) It provides a single place where this information can be readily found (for the sake of writing up reports, re-creating experimental protocols, etc.) and 2) It serves as proof of intellectual property.

You should make sure that an independent person signs and dates each page of your laboratory notebook as a certification that this is your work.

Log entries must be in ink. Errors should be crossed out with a single line, not erased.

Do not leave any pages blank. Draw a line through each blank page or portion thereof.

Do not tear out any pages.