LOG BOOKS: AN OFFICIAL SUMMARY What a log book is for: To enable replication and verification of your work by your

our colleagues To ensure scientific authenticity and provide proof that your results are not fraudulent To provide proof of intellectual property

Who is my audience? NOT YOU! The audience could be colleagues, scientific competitors, future researchers, a court of law (in the case of IP/patent issues)... you dont need to write in full sentences, but everything should be clear and legible no cryptic comments, please! When in doubt, think about the PURPOSE of a log record and use this to guide your record-keeping behaviours.

THE RULES Write in PEN pencil is appropriate only for DIAGRAMS and HAND-PLOTTED GRAPHS NO LIQUID PAPER, and NEVER EVER EVER rip pages out errors (even if they take up a whole page) should have a single line put through them and, where appropriate, a note indicating what went wrong Pages should be NUMBERED and you should lead your reader around by referring them to the appropriate page Include a TABLE OF CONTENTS, creating this as you go STICK THINGS IN, dont just slip them between the pages Always note the date and cite your collaborators Dot point notes are fine as long as they are clear

WHAT GOES IN? Record WHAT YOU DO AS YOU DO IT, including OBSERVATIONS, QUESTIONS TO PURSUE or INSIGHTS as they occur to you A chronological record of your experiment o This means the order might not be as clean as in a formal report. You might have to do something like this Aim >> Preliminary calculations/theory >> Method >> Results >> Preliminary analysis >> (Improved) method >> Results >> Analysis and Discussion >> Uncertainty calculation >> More discussion and a few additional results to clear up questions >> conclusions DETAILS matter o Tables should be ruled, and columns clearly labelled (including UNITS and uncertainty) o If referring to a handout for method, make sure the handout is stuck in and ANNOTATED to indicate where you have deviated from the instructions o Note the names and locations of file names o Print out and stick in key data tables & graphs from excel o Include derivations and a SAMPLE CALCULATION every time you work something out o If something happened while you were taking a particular data point, NOTE THIS next to the specific reading... you may then need to draw attention to this note when you come to do your analysis, as it may permit you to ignore or re-take specific data points.... o EVERYTHING you do should have a SCIENTIFIC justification YOU should be able to explain it. NB because it didnt look like the one the teacher showed us does not count as an explanation!