Weekly Laboratory Notes

You must maintain a well-organized and up-to-date laboratory notes, including all information and results from each laboratory exercise. You should organize your experimental results in an electronic copy format containing detailed information about each laboratory exercise, which will be helpful for the laboratory report later. Your laboratory notes should be kept up throughout the semester. You need to i) make your laboratory notes organized and clear to show that evident care was taken to make your notes easy to understand; ii) have the content of each laboratory exercise noted in the order specified below:

1. Date, title, name, and laboratory partner on the top of the first page
2. Purpose / objectives, with overall for the module and specific for the week
3. Results:
   1. Include the raw data obtained in the laboratory and convert it into:
      • tables with titles on the top and footnotes at the bottom, or
      • figures with proper labels and figure legends containing titles followed by a brief statement at the bottom or on the side.
   2. Present each result as one or two statements in the text, citing the corresponding tables and figures.
   3. When recording an observation, briefly describe what you did or the step number in the protocol.
   4. Show all your calculations.
4. Interpretation and discussion: You should interpret and discuss your results, but not repeat them. This part is just as crucial as the results, as it demonstrates your understanding of the laboratory. At the very least, you need to answer the following questions:
   1. What do the results mean?
   2. Did you get the expected results?
   3. Why or why not?
5. Conclusion and future direction / next steps: This part is where you wrap up your ideas and emphasize your accomplishment. You can restate the questions to ask or tasks to do, summarize your findings, accomplishments, and future direction. You may provide major takeaway points, questions to explore, and the next steps.
6. Lastly, sign and date the completed weekly lab notes.