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ScottyMcGeester's avatar

Is this how scientists normally keep their lab notebooks?

Asked by ScottyMcGeester (1897points) October 9th, 2014

Long story short – Been at my first lab job for almost 3 years now. The way my boss wants everyone to organize their lab notebooks made me confused at first, as it was different from what I did in college. I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while now.

My understanding of a lab notebook is that it holds all the crucial data, especially raw data, and all your ideas as you conceived them.

So even if you have a vague idea for something, you write it down there, that way it’s in your own handwriting and dated and practically sealed there in the book.

My boss saw that as “ass-backwards.” The only thing he wants to see in lab notebooks is the finished, processed report. In other words, I print out and paste Word docs and Excel spreadsheets of the typed up procedure and data. Hardly anything is handwritten in my lab notebook. Sure the documents have filenames and paths to go back into the server to find them, but ironically I found THIS method to be “ass-backwards.” Of course you should have a finished report at the end of every experiment, but I find it weird that a lab notebook would not have any of the original writing and just the processed reports in it.

Instead, he wants us all to cram our raw data and stuff like that into a binder he dubs a “chartbook.”

I find it irritating every time I show him raw data though and he grumbles at it saying “This is bullshit. It doesn’t tell you anything.” Even though. Well. It does. He just wants to see it in a Word doc/Excel spreadsheet.

Does anyone else organize their data my boss’s way?

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5 Answers

ARE_you_kidding_me's avatar

I do it my way for my own use and the way the boss (customer) wants it.

Dutchess_III's avatar

Better do it the bosses way. I feel your pain, btw.

longgone's avatar

I’d re-name the “chartbook”, call that my notebook. Then, give what is now your notebook a passive-agressive title ;)

gondwanalon's avatar

In the 80’s and 90’s I worded as a lab tech in a medical research lab and we kept all raw data. We did that to comply with the EPA’s Good Laboratory Practice Standards and ALL of our note books were regularly inspected. Even if we wrote information down on a paper towel we were obligated to date, sign and post it in our raw data note book. If you think that your boss is in violation of the GLPS than you may report violations here

dabbler's avatar

Where does the boss expect you to keep your actual notes on rough observations and raw data?
I like @gondwanalon‘s citation of the GLPS, that sounds like good science practice to me.

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