The professor overseeing your research just asked you to have a meeting with her, so you can discuss the most recent method you have been using for your project. Normally, this wouldn’t invoke any anxiety, because you know your project inside and out. But… your professor is prodding for specifics, exact quantities, and for the life of you, you just can’t remember what you were using.

One of the rookie-est of all rookie mistakes I’ve witnessed in my time competing in and coaching for science fairs is not keeping a detailed lab notebook. A judge may ask you for a copy of it on the day of the science fair, because they want to verify your experimental method or check the repeatability aspect of your project. But in addition to the extra brownie points at the fair, having a lab notebook is also a great tool for you, the serious scientific researcher, to keep on hand. You can take a long break in your research, maybe for exams or for the holidays, then be able to pick right back up where you left off. You can demonstrate your method exactly to someone who wants to try your experiments. You can keep track of the date when you sent out your samples to be tested, giving you the perfect information to use when you are writing that sternly-worded email to the biotech company that hasn’t sent over your results yet. 

That being said, the lab notebook is a tricky process to navigate for new researchers, so allow me to give you my tried-and-true steps for starting and keeping a notebook. 

1. Pick your format. 

Lab notebooks are beautifully flexible, and you can pick whichever interface you want for keeping yours. Usually it’s a toss-up between online notebooks or paper ones. Personally, I have found that keeping a Google Doc open is the easiest way to keep a notebook, and starting a new page or entry by simply entering the date of your work. I have also started keeping a paper file such as a binder on hand, for putting away random notes or methods that I jot down when I am doing my actual benchwork. Again, it’s up to you– just make sure it is something sustainable that you can keep up consistently. Don’t start using fancy formatting that makes it too much work to make an entry; your notebook is for YOU and for making YOUR life easier. 

2. Make entries all the time. 

Every time I do any work related to my project, I make an entry in my lab notebook online. If I am starting a new method, repeating an experiment, gathering data, or even reading a piece of scientific literature that has something to do with my research, I keep notes and record it in my document. At the end of my ISEF project, I had a 123-page Google Doc filled with entries. My format, like I said, is maximized for simplicity. Remember, you can always go back to the notebook and extract information or data that you want to make a little prettier for papers or poster presentations. Here is a quick sample of an entry: 

9/18/23

Today I am conducting research on different mass spectrometry methodologies, which I will be adding to my proposal and then conducting in the lab.

Mass spec analysis purpose: concentration of specific compounds, ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid

• Need to use an internal standard (propanediol) to minimize effects of random/systematic error

• Extraction solvent: acetonitrile (miscible with water and most organic solvents)

  • Also called a sample matrix

• Retention time: a measure of the time taken for a solute to pass through a chromatography column; calculated from injection to detection

• Mass spectral graphs for ethylene glycol, propanediol, and terephthalic acid are readily available

• Would the 3D GC-MS graph be converted to a TIC? 

  • TIC: Total ion chromatogram

    • produced by summing the abundances of all the ions at a single data point and plotting it against the retention time (RT)/scan number to produce a total ion chromatogram (TIC)

Very simple, very to the point, and it allows you to have flexibility with the methods you are designing. At the end of your research when you are preparing for your final paper, you will be glad to have the different iterations of your project to look back on and analyze.

3. Comb through and condense.

The research notebook is what you should be using to help you write those pesky reports for the science fair. When your project starts coming to a close, go back through your notebook and pick out the key papers you used to develop your method and the most important data you collected, then use that to start outlining the final report. (Feel free to make fancy data tables and type in full sentences when it comes to the writing stage, but don’t worry about it when you are making entries in the notebook.)

4. Print it, bind it, and present it.

On the day of the science fair, make sure you have a printed-out copy of your research notebook, most preferred bound in an aesthetically-pleasing binder, and keep it with you at all times. Encourage judges and audience members to flip through so they can see your thinking process laid out in front of them and get a deeper understanding of the research journey you took to arrive at your final solutions.

So, to conclude, it is a bit tricky to get started, but following this guide, you will soon be conquering the research notebook without a second thought. Keep it simple, make thorough entries, and you’re good to go. I hope to see you on judging day, smiling brightly and lugging around a very heavy binder filled with all of your carefully-kept notes.

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