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The Laboratory Notebook
Guidelines
Biological Sciences 2007-2008
These notes are intended as an Appendix to the
Undergraduate Research Guidelines.
Dear Undergraduate,
A laboratory notebook is a precious resource both in a
research context, as well as for the further teaching of how to record
laboratory exercises. If prepared carefully, a notebook can serve as a
timeless record of how laboratory experimentation was conducted and
recorded. There is variability in how notebooks are maintained (and how
people maintain them). What follows are some guidelines and basic
principles to ensure proper documentation that will stand the test of time.
Sincerely,
Dr Malcolm Potts, Lead Scholar
Dr Hamda Al-Naemi, Head of Department
The Research Committee and Faculty of
Biological Sciences
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The Laboratory Notebook
1. Ownership
A laboratory notebook is the property of the laboratory where the research and/or
teaching preparation is conducted. Ownership may also extend to those who support the
research and/or, as in some countries, the general public.
The notebook should remain in the laboratory at all times to prevent the loss of valuable
data, and to ensure access to work by peers and supervisors; during and AFTER you
leave the laboratory.
It is commonplace for students to take a photocopy of their notebook (or the carbon
copies of the lab pages) when leaving the laboratory.
Because of human nature, a notebook may be removed forgetfully from the laboratory or
even worse, be misplaced, or even lost. The Notebook should thus carry your name,
address, telephone number, email and the prominent statement “REWARD IF FOUND”
on the cover.
2. General Comments
•
The notebook should have sufficient pages to permit up to two semesters of
laboratory research activity, which means about 100 individual pages. Laboratory
notebooks typically have duplicate pages that can be used to make carbon copies of
each page; these carbon copies can be removed conveniently to make a duplicate
carbon copy of the notebook at the end of the work if necessary.
•
The notebook should be hard-backed if possible, but not loose-leaf or spiral bound.
•
Never remove any pages from the notebook and never use “white-out” to change any
entries. Sections or paragraphs that contain mistakes or errors should have a line
drawn through them; with a few words of explanation in the margin.
•
Every experiment separate experiment should have a reference number. Most
conveniently you can use the initials of your name, and allocate a series of numbers
from 1 to 100, which should be sufficient for your research work at the University.
For example, AB001, AB002, AB003…etc.
•
The first page of the notebook should have a Table of Contents that lists all of the
experiments in chronological order; with the title of the experiment, when it began
and when it was completed, and the inclusive page numbers.
AB001
AB002
Protein purification from erythrocytes 3/24/06 - 6/14/06
DNA extraction from erythrocytes
3/25/06 - 4/12/06
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pages 16 to 23
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The reference number for a given experiment can be used to label flasks, label tubes
for easy identification. For example, suppose you extracted protein from erythrocytes
(AB001) on 4/16/06 and this generated four different fractions (a, b, c, d), with two
duplicate tubes (1 and 2) of each fraction. You could label your tubes, flasks etc. as
AB001/ 4/16/ a2
AB001/4/16/c1, etc.
However you decide to label your tubes, containers etc, you should use unambiguous
labeling that would permit you to go immediately to the correct page in the laboratory
notebook, and identify its contents. Several examples are given below for labeling.
•
Sometimes you may need to insert other types of information in your notebook. For
example, a photograph of an agarose gel, photograph of a polyacrylamide gel, etc.
Each item should have the experiment number and date written upon it. Furthermore,
any photographic negative, or digital file should have the same reference number. If
you took a photograph of an agarose gel on 3/28/06 as part of AB002 you could save
the digital file as AB002_3_28_06.jpeg.
•
If you use specialty reagents such as enzymes, or certain types of chemicals in certain
procedures, you will notice they all have a certain LOT number. This is the reference
number that a manufacturer uses to track when certain chemicals or reagents were
made in their facility. It is useful to keep track of these in your notebook. For
example if you are isolating an enzyme that requires a certain specific buffer for its
activity, and one day you find you cannot reproduce that activity, it is possible that
you used a new supply of buffer with a different LOT number. Being able to track all
of your work is very important.
•
If you exhaust and finish all of an enzyme in a series of experiments that worked well
(DNA ligase for example), remove the label from the empty tube and paste it in your
notebook (to show the LOT number, date of manufacture, manufacturer etc.).
Someday you may need to publish your data and having all of this information at
hand is critical.
3. Supervision
•
Your supervisor should review and read your notebook on a regular basis (at least
weekly) to ensure you are adhering to correct format, to review your work, and to
make suggestions as to how you can improve your record keeping. After doing so,
the supervisor should initial and date the most current page of the notebook.
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4. An experiment is not a project
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When you first decide to pursue research you will discuss with your supervisor the
general purpose of the work, or a hypothesis that you may test. For example, you
may be interested in determining whether drinking water from storage tanks contains
any toxins or not. Your project will generally have a title that reflects the overall
purpose of the work:
Objective or Title of the Project:
“Identification of bacterial toxins in household drinking water”
During the course of your project you will perform a number of different experiments
to gather data and to test your hypothesis.
5. A notebook is not a Diary
A common fault when keeping notebooks, especially those prepared by the novice, is that
they are written as a diary of daily events, rather than a logical compilation of individual
experiments, and how these experiments were conceived, executed, and terminated.
Example 1 - The Diary – The WRONG WAY!
Suppose your Objective is to purify an enzyme from yeast, then to obtain sequence data
of the protein to permit isolation of its gene, and then to study how the gene is regulated.
You begin your diary – page 1 (no experimental numbers).
Day 1 - You begin one experiment by preparing media and starting a culture of yeast.
The cells grow relatively slowly (this may take 72 hours).
Day 2 - While the cells of interest are growing, you decide to prepare some plasmid DNA
from E. coli to use in future cloning procedures. You begin the culture of E. coli
overnight.
Day 3 – You begin to purify plasmid DNA from the overnight culture of E. coli cells; you
have to finish early today so you stop at some point in the procedure to continue the next
day.
Day 4 – The yeast cells (Day 1) are now ready, but there are some reagents that you
purchased that have yet to arrive. So, you freeze the yeast cells until you can proceed
with the enzyme purification (you simply label the tubes with the date).
Day 5 to 10 – You continue with your plasmid extraction (started Day 3).
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Day 11 – The reagents finally arrive today so you begin the enzyme purification with the
yeast cells you froze on Day 4.
Confused already? Imagine where you are after 6 months!!
In this simple example, the person who keeps a diary writes down every activity on Days
1 through 11 (of course many other things have been performed in the laboratory!) and
these occupy several pages. As time goes by, the diary becomes an incomprehensible
collection of notes and events. It becomes very difficult (sometimes impossible) to know
when one experiment starts, another ends, and a new one begins.
If you cannot keep track of your work – how can your supervisor?
Example 1 - The Notebook – The RIGHT WAY!
Objective - Enzyme Characterization from Yeast
MP001 – Growth of yeast cells – 4/23/07
page 1
You allocate a series of contiguous pages (say 15) to this experiment
4/23/07 - You begin the experiment by preparing media and starting the culture of the
yeast. The cells grow relatively slowly (this may take 72 hours). Here you make a note
of:
How to prepare the media (in detail)
The growth conditions for yeast
The strain designation of the yeast
For this experiment you will have prepared a series of reagents and solutions. The
preparation of these solutions can be placed in an Appendix in your notebook for easy
reference.
This procedure on 4/23/07 will become your standard operating procedure (SOP) –
you may repeat this many, many times, and so you can always refer back to this page for
the precise details every time you repeat the procedure in the future, simply making note
of any slight modifications.
page 4
4/27/07 - The yeast cells are now ready, but there are some reagents that you purchased
that have yet to arrive. So, you freeze the yeast cells (2 tubes) until you can proceed with
the enzyme purification.
You label the tubes:
MP001 4/27 - 1
MP001 4/27 - 2
These are placed in the freezer (you make note which freezer and which shelf).
Freezers can be numbered as can the different shelf numbers for easy reference.
e.g. -20oC Freezer #2 shelf 5.
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MP002 – Plasmid DNA Preparation
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page 16
You allocate a separate collection of contiguous pages (say 15) to this experiment
4/24/07 - While the yeast cells are growing, you decide to prepare some plasmid DNA
from E. coli to use in future cloning procedures. You begin the culture of E. coli
overnight.
You note:
How to prepare the media (in detail)
The growth conditions
You make note of the strain of E. coli you are using
page 18
4/25/07 - The cells of E. coli have grown overnight and are ready to begin the plasmid
isolation.
You make detailed notes about the procedure used to isolate the plasmid DNA.
Any problems you encountered.
Any observations you made.
The volumes of plasmid preparations you have.
This procedure may become your SOP for plasmid purification.
Your plasmid DNA preparations (4 tubes) are labeled in tubes as:
MP002 4/24 – A
MP002 4/24 – B
MP002 4/24 – C
MP002 4/24 – D
They are placed in 4oC freezer # 1 shelf B.
For this experiment you will have prepared a series of reagents and solutions. The
preparation of these solutions can be placed in an Appendix in your notebook for easy
reference.
page 20
4/26/07 - You prepare an agarose gel to evaluate the purity of your plasmid DNA
preparation.
You load 10µl each of samples MP002 4/24 – A, B, C, D in lanes 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the gel.
You make a note of the running conditions for the gel. The settings become part of your
SOP for agarose gel electrophoresis.
You take three photographs of the gel and save the images in three digital files as
MP002 4/24 –gel1.jpeg,
MP002 4/24 –gel2.jpeg,
MP002 4/24 –gel3.jpeg,
Tomorrow you will resume your work with yeast on page 5!
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Consider the two examples of the “Diary” and the “Notebook”. Imagine how easy it is to
track and organize your work in a “Notebook” as opposed to a “Diary.”
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