How to Document Labs

TCES 230 Digital Logic

Introduction

This page is a brief overview of how to document your labs using this online notebook. This covers how to explain your lab work and how to display data in your notebook. My general advice is to follow all lab instructions, write in your own words, and present your work in a professional way.

Explaining Your Lab Work

Any text that you include in your lab notebook should be in your own words. I do not want to read my own words copied and pasted into your lab, and I especially don't want to see text from another source in your notebook. This includes the textbook, websites, your friend's notebook, etc. These would fit into the category of Academic Dishonesty, and we would have to have a serious chat. Just use your own words! The exception to this rule is that you may quote any source that you use. If you want to use an exact sentence from your textbook or a website, you can do that by placing the words in quotation marks and providing a reference to the source. For the textbook, you can just provide the page number. For a website, include a link to the site and the author's name if you can find it.

When you write in your notebook, the text of your document should be clear and professional. Through this class, we will learn a lot of new terms and phrases. Try to use these new words. You will improve your vocabulary and solidify your understanding of course material. If you are trying to describe something that we haven't talked about in class, you should try to describe it clearly and introduce any new terms that you use.

Every lab should have it's own introduction section and conclusion section. I recommend reading the lab assignment and writing your introduction before you come to lab. Briefly describe the goals of the lab and the methods used in 4-5 sentences. You can write the conclusion after you leave lab. The conclusion should contain a brief summary of what you did in the lab, what worked and didn't work, and what you learned. Try to discuss how the results of the lab agreed or disagreed with what you expected.

In between the introduction and conclusion, you will have sections that follow the lab assignment. For example, if the lab has a required prelab, you should include that as a section. If the lab is broken down into 3 parts, your lab notebook can have 3 sections for the three parts. In each section, describe the purpose of that part of the lab, record any interesting observations, provide any relevant results, and include and math or analysis needed. You should also try to explain your results. Does this line up with what you expect? Do you notice differences between different parts of the lab? Asking yourself questions like these help reinforce what you are learning in lab. Please take photos of your circuits you build in the lab. You can take a photo with your phone, email it to yourself, and add to your lab notebook.

Displaying Data

In lab, you will need to record any data that is produced by the lab experiments. If you only need to measure and report a single value, you can do that in the text of your document. For example, if you measure a single voltage, you can give that number in a sentence. Make sure to include units of the appropriate scale because there is a big difference between 1 mA and 1 A.

In some parts of the lab, you will need to measure and include a large amount of data. In this case, a table is likely a better fit for the data. You can add data as a table in multiple ways. One way is to create the table in Google Sheets and then insert into your lab notebook. This was done in Table 1 below. As a note, a table requires a label and a caption. The first table in a document must say "Table 1. " and then have a description of what is shown on the table. Table 1 below serves as an example. Additional tables should be labeled "Table 2", "Table 3", etc. each with a description. I recommend sticking to one sentence, but be specific enough to differentiate your tables. If you say something like "Truth table" that isn't specific enough as I don't know which truth table you mean. You may have several truth tables in one lab.

All photos, screenshots, plots, etc. are figures and must be labeled and captioned as figures. Your figure caption must start with "Figure 1. " and then have a description of what is shown on the figure. Figure 1 is an example below. The descriptions should be one sentence that clearly explains what is in the figure and differentiates the figure from all others in the lab.

The data in Table 1 was collected by applying the voltage shown to a diode and measuring the resulting current. This data can be called "current-voltage" pairs for this specific diode.

Data Sample

Table 1. This table contains voltage-current pairs for a diode. (Note: This was inserted from a Google spreadsheet.)

You can track data in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel and then create tables from that data. Use whichever you are more comfortable with. Here is a short video on how to insert this data into a Google site:

The current-voltage data on Table 1 is plotted below in Figure 1. Note that the general shape of the data is exponential.

Figure 1. This is a plot of current over voltage for a diode. (Note: This is the same data as in Table 1 and created in the spreadsheet.)

Sometimes a figure is more appropriate for displaying data. Here is a video on how to make scientific plots in Google:

Another way to make tables is to use either Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel and take screenshots. You can type your data into your preferred spreadsheet program as you are working through the lab. After you leave lab, you can clean up the table to make it professional and easy to read. You can then take a screenshot of the data to include on your Google sites lab notebook. You may need to copy into a simple image editing program (Microsoft paint, etc.) to crop the image and save as an an image filetype.

Figure 2. This is a 20x20 grid of squares.

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