Maintaining a Lab Notebook: Practical Habits for Better Research

A lab notebook is one of those things that feels simple until you actually start doing research. In theory, you carefully document every reagent, calculation, observation, and result as the experiment unfolds. In practice, you are wearing gloves, juggling three timers, trying to remember which tube is which, and suddenly the nearest available writing surface is a paper towel.

I absolutely write experimental notes on paper towels (to which my students laugh at me). However, that is not the recommended archival system. The important part is that those notes eventually make it into the lab notebook.

A good lab notebook is more than a place to record results. It is a chronological record of the research process: procedures, reagents, calculations, observations, ideas, explanations, results, and conclusions. It also provides information that future researchers can use and often becomes the foundation for publications, theses, presentations, and other research products.

For undergraduate researchers especially, learning how to maintain a useful lab notebook is one of the most practical research skills you can develop.

Your Lab Notebook Is for More Than Results

One of the biggest mistakes new researchers make is treating the lab notebook as a place where finished experiments go.

It should also be where experiments begin.

Before starting an experiment, use the notebook to document your experimental plan. Write down the goal, hypothesis, or specific question you are trying to answer. Include the protocol you plan to follow, calculations you need to make, reagents and equipment you will need, and any changes you are making from previous experiments. These are all pieces that belong in a complete experimental record.

This makes the notebook useful for experimental planning rather than simply experimental archaeology. The experimental template from the planning document can 100% be put into your lab notebook.

A basic pre-experiment entry might include:

The date and experiment title
The research question or goal
A short hypothesis
The protocol or reference you are using
Any modifications from previous experiments
Required reagents and equipment
Calculations for concentrations, dilutions, or sample numbers
What data you plan to collect
What you expect to do next based on different possible outcomes

Planning this way also forces you to think through the experiment before you are halfway through it and realize that a reagent needs a three-hour incubation. Not that this has ever happened to anyone in research.

Record What Actually Happened

Once the experiment starts, the notebook should shift from what you planned to do to what you actually did. Those two things are not always identical.

Maybe the protocol called for a 10-minute incubation, but it actually lasted 13 minutes because another sample needed attention. Maybe the centrifuge was being used, so the samples sat on ice longer than expected. Maybe the solution looked cloudy when it normally looks clear.

Write those things down. Observations are an important part of the experimental record. Raw data, calculations, protocol changes, unusual appearances, mistakes, equipment problems, and unexpected results may all become important later.

You do not need to write a novel. You just need enough information that six months from now you can understand what happened.

Find a Recording System You Will Actually Use

There are different philosophies about when to write things down. Some researchers document everything directly in the lab notebook as they work. That is probably the safest system.

Then there is my system.

Sometimes I am in the middle of an experiment and the lab notebook is not immediately convenient, so concentrations, times, sample numbers, and observations end up temporarily written on a paper towel.

Paper towels are surprisingly versatile laboratory equipment. They are not, however, permanent laboratory records. If you use scratch paper, paper towels, instrument printouts, sticky notes, or another temporary system while working, transfer that information into the notebook as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the more likely something gets forgotten.

The goal is not to create a perfectly beautiful notebook. The goal is to create an accurate one.

Include the Messy Experiments Too

It is tempting to document the experiments that worked and quietly move past the ones that did not. Do not do that. Failed experiments are still data.

If an experiment does not work, documenting it may prevent you, or another student, from repeating the exact same failure three months later. Lab notebooks are particularly valuable for troubleshooting because they allow researchers to compare experiments, identify variables that changed, and determine what conditions may have contributed to a different result.

Include what happened, why you think it happened, and what you would change next time. Just make sure you distinguish between an observation and an interpretation.

For example:

Observation: The treated sample produced a weaker band than the control.

Interpretation: The treatment may have reduced protein expression.

Those are not the same statement. Your notebook should make that distinction clear. The presentation specifically emphasizes separating observations and facts from opinions or interpretations.

Make Your Notebook Easy to Navigate

You do not want your notebook to become 150 pages of experimental hide-and-seek.

A few simple organizational habits make an enormous difference.

Keep a table of contents. Start experiments on new pages. Clearly label each experiment with a title and date. Include project names when you work on multiple projects. If multiple researchers use the same notebook, identify who made each entry.

You should also document where electronic data are stored. Many modern experiments produce files that obviously cannot be taped into a notebook: microscopy image sets, sequencing data, plate-reader files, videos, spreadsheets, or large datasets.

In those cases, the notebook should contain enough information to locate the original files, including the primary and backup storage locations when appropriate.

An entry like:

Confocal images saved: Research Drive > GBM Project > 2026-08-14_U251_Uptake

is dramatically more useful than:

Images on computer.

Future you will appreciate the difference.

Paper or Electronic?

Both can work.

For a traditional paper notebook, durable construction matters. Bound notebooks with numbered pages that cannot easily be removed help maintain the integrity of the research record.

Electronic lab notebooks offer different advantages, including searchability, embedding images and data, linking between entries, secure access, audit trails, and exporting records into common file formats.

Many labs also use a hybrid system: physical notebooks for day-to-day experimental records and electronic storage for larger datasets.

The best system is the one your lab can use consistently and maintain long-term.

A Few Habits That Matter

Some notebook practices are simple but important.

Use permanent ink rather than pencil. Do not use white-out to hide mistakes. If you make an error, cross it out so the original information remains readable, then make the correction. Include calculations, diagrams, abbreviations, and notes that help reconstruct the experiment. Signing and dating pages is also a useful practice.

And never remove pages simply because an experiment went badly.

Scientific records should reflect what actually happened, not what we wish had happened. The notebook should be an honest account of the research.

Write for the Researcher Who Comes After You

For undergraduate researchers, one of the easiest ways to think about a lab notebook is this:

Could another student repeat this experiment using only what I wrote down?

If the answer is no, add more information.

That researcher might be another student next semester. It might be your faculty mentor. It might also be you nine months from now staring at a spreadsheet called Final_Data_Actually_Final_v3.xlsx and wondering what on earth you did.

A good lab notebook preserves the story of the research: what you planned, what you did, what happened, what you think it means, and what should happen next.

It does not have to be beautiful.

It does not need perfect handwriting.

And despite my occasional best efforts, it should probably not be maintained primarily on paper towels.

It just needs to be complete enough that the science can continue.

As I come across lab notebooks my students and I like I'll post the link here:

Basic composition notebook https://amzn.to/3Sv1syJ
- This is ideal for students who are note likely going to be in the lab for a long time.
Lab Notebook Graphing Notebooks Graph Paper https://amzn.to/4wsG3UM
- This is better for students who are going to be around the lab longer or that link to print out more full sheets of paper to paste them in.

This is free, always will be — but if you want to say thanks, a chai latte tip is always appreciated ☕

Venmo @Jessica-Pullan