Notes on Phys 272 LABORATORY NOTEBOOKS

Obtain a National Brand 43-648, 4x4 grid (rust cover). Your labs will be graded based on the content of this notebook, so it is important that you communicate your work effectively, both to yourself, and to the grader :) Good notebook skills will be essential to you as a practicing scientist, whether in an industrial or academic setting, so it is important that you get in the habit of keeping good records early. We want to establish good habits for doing research. The following requirements are designed to help you practice good scientific record-keeping skills, and to enhance your grade by communicating to the grader what you have done and how you obtained your results.

What's IN:

Students will use their lab notebook to record their thinking and present preliminary results. They will include the following 10 kinds of things (coded using NB#, for a lab notebook item number):
  1. Diagrams, sketches of the setup, including apparatus and instruments. See #10. NB1
  2. Relevant settings on equipment. NB2
  3. Location of saved data. NB3
  4. Tables of hand recorded data with units. NB4
  5. Discussion of Modeling, calculations, sketches, and modeling results using fitteia, and so on, NB5
  6. Estimation of experimental uncertainty. NB6
  7. Quantitative comparison of uncertainty & discrepancy (iterative modeling steps!). NB7
  8. Plots of data generated while doing the lab, some done by hand directly into the lab notebook, informal, and made to test whether one is on the right track, and others generated by, say, fitteia, should be printed and taped into lab notebooks, making certain that model curves and error bars are displayed wherever possible. NB8
  9. An abstract is created last of all and taped in (using ShareLaTeX output) or written in by hand, with results expressed using significant figures appropriately. NB9
  10. First of all, record an agenda, plan of attack, questions regarding apparatus and concepts, and so forth. This agenda comes first and is readily checked by the lab instructor when the student walks in the door. See below. NB10

Process Notes:

  • Prior to the beginning of each lab period, one records an agenda and plan for the day's activities. The agenda includes a clear statement of the research question, or, the experimental problem to solve, in ones own words. The student will have read the description of the experiment and will arrive in lab with an idea of how to attack the problem given, but may also have many conceptual and technical questions. These are recorded at the beginning of each day's work, and discussed with the student's lab partner. Note that this is the 10th indicated above. Be specific and brief. A piece of a hypothetical example: ''In this lab we plan to measure the rates of both charged-current and neutral-current reactions between solar neutrinos and deuterium. If we observe a difference between these two rates, that would be evidence for neutrino oscillations and, hence, a nonzero neutrino mass. We will do the following measurements first...these second...then we will... but I am not sure how to read the data from individual PMT's in the Kamioakande installation, I have to find that out....''
  • What goes in an abstract? An abstract quotes principal results, compares uncertainties and discrepancies (if that is possible), uses significant figures appropriately, and captures the essence of the methods used to obtain the results. It is brief. If an item on this list is missing, it is incomplete.
  • All entries must be in ink . Cross out any mistakes with a single line.
  • Students will make their records such that their lab notebook may be used to answer questions about data from many weeks prior, once their memory has faded.
  • This is your diary. Record your actions and results as they happen. You will record their notes and make plots while 'taking data', solving problems, debugging, modifying their setup, designing, altering, fiddling with apparatus, and so on, not later that evening or during the weekend following. Indeed, the purpose of quadrille paper is to aid in the creation of data tables and plots very simple and direct. Prepare the axes, plot the data as it is 'taken'. Make it nicer later. Analyze what you are doing in real-time.
  • The notebook must be interpretable as a whole to another reader, functioning as a guide capable of allowing the reader to reproduce the results claimed in the abstract, found in the graphs, exhibited in the analytic discussions, sketches, and calculations, and so forth.
  • Record what you don't know and want or need to find out.
  • Use headings in your lab notebook to attempt to be organized, so e.g., headings like:

    Agenda, Prelab notes, questions:

    APPARATUS AND SETTINGS:

    PROCEDURES:

    RAW DATA:

    Modeling and Analysis:

    Discussion of results:

    all make sense

Grading Rubric:

Table 1: Grading rubric: each evaluative category is graded on a 3 point scale, 3 for proficient, and so on. If a required item is not present, it gets zero pts. And some items are graded only on a 1 pt. scale, meaning that the required element is either there or not there.
category of evaluationproficient (3pts) intermediate (2pts) developing (or 'there') (1pt) total-whiff (or 'not there') (0pt)
Research question and day's agenda: there (see NB10) not there
Location, filenames of saved data there not there
Relevant All settings on apparatus there not there
Tables of hand recorded data [1] for tables all columns have descriptors and units, table headings include a description of how the data were taken (or is meaningful somehow and points to such a description....), each measurement is reported with an uncertainty not all of that is there
Graphs and plots all graphs have legible axes labels including appropriate units, experimental data distinguished from modeling curves, experimental uncertainty of data points observable or discussed not all of that is there
experimental design or approach [2]the experimental approach is clearly, usefully explained at the beginning of the entry for the experiment (see NB10), and the research question clearly stated. Beyond this, i) refinements of the approach may prove necessary once the work is underway. These must be recorded too if necessary. Leave room at the top for these. ii) Procedures followed during the period of the experiment are recorded, both the stuff that proves correct and incorrect. If problems are encountered, if errors are discovered, these are visible in the record. iii) Sketches, block diagrams, including all apparatus and instruments used are present. The goal, a very holistic goal is this: If all the results can be reproduced and understood from the written record, the notebook has been proficiently and professionally kept. One or two of these best practices have not been followed, leading to missing information and a bit of incompleteness. a few of these items are missing; the lab notebook could not be relied upon to reproduce the results. not there
modeling results includes i) calculations (exhibited, explicit), ii) sketches, iii) predictions and their `checks', both during and after data-taking, iv) modeling plots, v) estimates of `goodness of fit' and vi) its uncertainty (having to do with Goldilocks plots where appropriate), and vii) discussion explaining each of these, wherever they appear in the narrative of the lab notebook record. The goal is holistic: if the answer to the research question posed is clearly supported by modeling analyses in turn supported by the data taken, that the reasoning is explicit and exhibited, then the lab notebook record has been proficiently and professionally kept. one or two of these elements of best practice with respect to modeling work are missing a few of these elements are missing not there
uncertainty, discrepancy, and significant figures Methodology of estimating uncertainty is described with specificity, best values and their significant figures are rounded and truncated in light of the uncertainty, discrepancies are compared with uncertainties wherever possible, and quantitative data driven conclusions are reached in light of these comparisons. One or two of these best practice elements is missing a few of these elements are missing not there
abstract quotes and interprets principal results, compares uncertainties and discrepancies (if that is possible), uses significant figures appropriately, and captures the essence of the methods used to obtain the results, which together supports or defends the given answer to the research question of the day. It is brief. one of these elements is missing two of these elements are missing where is the abstract...
  1. NB: this is not about `how many' or if `all' of the tables are present. This is about the formatting that must be true of ANY table that gets recorded in the lab notebook in order to get the point. The same is true for plots and graphs. The formatting requirements must be met for all graphs & plots to get the point. This will be hard at first.
  2. I am looking for an overall impression here rather than a very microscopic look at one particular data taking task. Although if an individual data taking task is not recorded proficiently, if its design or the approach is not apparent through sketches and brief statements, if something required for the calculations simply appears there but not recorded elsewhere, etc., etc., ... then it will be hard for the reader to get the impression the whole thing was done proficiently. This comment also extends to the modeling results category.