Lab notebook

Page from a laboratory notebook of Alexander Graham Bell, 1876.
Page from the notebook of Otto Hahn, 1938.
Lab notebook with the complete record of the experiments underlying a published paper.[1]
Chemistry stencils that used to be used for drawing equipment in lab notebooks.

A laboratory notebook (colloq. lab notebook or lab book) is a primary record of research. Researchers use a lab notebook to document their hypotheses, experiments and initial analysis or interpretation of these experiments. The notebook serves as an organizational tool, a memory aid, and can also have a role in protecting any intellectual property that comes from the research.[2]

  1. ^ Lang, G. I.; Botstein, D. (2011). Rusche, Laura N (ed.). "A Test of the Coordinated Expression Hypothesis for the Origin and Maintenance of the GAL Cluster in Yeast". PLOS ONE. 6 (9): e25290. Bibcode:2011PLoSO...625290L. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025290. PMC 3178652. PMID 21966486.
  2. ^ Schnell, Santiago (2015-09-10). "Ten Simple Rules for a Computational Biologist's Laboratory Notebook". PLOS Computational Biology. 11 (9): e1004385. Bibcode:2015PLSCB..11E4385S. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004385. ISSN 1553-7358. PMC 4565690. PMID 26356732.