Laboratory NotebookFront of your notebook should contain:

Name:

Address: School of Physical and Geographical Sciences

Each new experiment should start on a new page

Title of the experiment should be recorded at the start of the each new experiment.

Date should be recorded at the beginning of each laboratory session

Results should be recorded with a short sentence which is sufficiently explanatory that you or someone else can understand it

Record all your data/measurements as you take them

Laboratory NotebookAlways record the units of your measurements along with the measurements themselves

If your data is taken for a certain period of time or a certain number of oscillations etc. then always record this fact along with the measurements themselves.

If you plot or fit your data using one of the computer programs, make a printout of the program output (usually a graph) and attach (glue, sellotape, staple) it into your notebook.

If you use the spreadsheet to analyse the data, make a printout of the spreadsheet and attach (glue, sellotape, staple) it into your notebook.

Laboratory NotebookIf you decide that a set of measurements is incorrect for some reason don’t obliterate it in your notebook. Instead simply draw one diagonal line through it and make a note why you have discarded it. If at a later date you change your mind (or if a staff supervisor or post-graduate demonstrator persuades you to change your mind) you won’t have to re-take the data again. As long as it can still be read it can be used.

Make a note of the pieces of apparatus that you are using in your experiment, e.g. radioactive source B, A.C. circuit box G, a Farnell oscilloscope serial number F831GBX etc. If for some reason a piece of your apparatus is removed (it shouldn’t be but !) then we can recover it if we know the number and you can continue your experiment without having to start again.

At the end of your experiment you should summarise your results, tabulating clearly the values you have obtained for any derived quantities (and their error bars) with suitable notes explaining what each is.

Further details can be found in section 2.1 of the laboratory manual.