The Laboratory Notebook.

Before coming to the organic laboratory for the first time you should purchase a laboratory notebook in the college bookstore. Immediately write your name on the front cover in ink and always be careful not to lose the notebook since as the semester proceeds you will be accumulating valuable and irreplaceable information.

You will be using your notebook in several different ways:

1. Prior to the lab meeting, record an abbreviated procedure (in ink) that you can easily follow as you do the experiment.
2. Record notes from the prelab lecture (in ink) in the notebook for future reference.
3. Record your measurements and observations (in ink) in the notebook as you make them.

Use the first two pages of the notebook as the table of contents.

This will help you better organize your information and will make it easier for the instructor to navigate within your lab notebook. In the table of contents include the following information:

• The experiment number (from the lab text)
• The title of the experiment
• The page number location of the experiment in the notebook

As you prepare for the laboratory, divide the notebook page into two sections (figure at right). The left hand section is your version of the experimental procedure. Don't copy down what you read in the lab textbook. Instead restate the procedure in terms you can understand. Use numbered lists, block diagrams and sketches if necessary to make this a useful set of instructions

The right hand 1/3 page is reserved for you to record data, measurements and observations as you perform the experiment. This technique will help you organize your data and observations by keeping important information near that part of the experiment it belongs. The page layout will (hopefully) remind you to record your observations on a regular basis.

Record all changes discussed in the prelab lecture in your lab notebook.

Occasionally, an experiment described in the laboratory text requires slightly different equipment than that available in our laboratory. In these cases, appropriate changes will be described in the prelaboratory lecture that takes place in the first twenty to thirty minutes the class meets. Carefully record these changes in the lab notebook on a new page if necessary.