Keeping a Research Notebook
Directions in research is fluid and constantly changing. Last week's results will often dictate this week's experiments and so on. It is for this reason it is necessary to keep a detailed notebook of your experiments, results and your thoughts. Also remember that a premise of modern science is that the experiment should be reproducible by a competant scientific layman. This requires knowledge of the varibles within the experiment. There are three different philosophies on keeping a notebook. They are
| Advantages | Disadvantages | |
| 1. Cryptic to the point that only you will understand what is in the notebook. | Often times less time consuming to keep updated | Lot's here. No one else will understand what you've done. In a year to just a few months, you will not understand what you have done. This often leads to circular research or re-inventing the wheel syndrome. |
| 2. Detailed and clear enough for our research group to understand. | Allows for fellow research group members to reproduce your work. Allows for a successor to pick up where you left off. | Scientific laymen will find your notes somewhat cryptic. Your sucessor will struggle to understand what you have done without your guidance. |
| 3. Very detailed | Allows for scientific laypersons to pickup your work without much struggle. | Can be very time consuming to keep updated. |
I would suggest that you start out with option 3 and after a few months fall back to option 2. Detailed calculations, i.e. concentrations, MW etc are a good idea in the beginning but can start to be laborious if continued past a few months.