DEPT OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

Keeping a Logbook

Whether you are carrying out a simple experiment or conducting a project, a properly
maintained logbook is essential. Below is a brief description of the usage of a logbook, and
gives suggestions on the organisation, layout and the materials that should go into one.

Why keep a logbook

The use of a laboratory logbook is compulsory in many industrial/commercial companies. A

logbook should serve as :

1. A “permanent” record of your work, allowing you to repeat the experiment, analyse the
data using different methods, or reappraise the entire project.

2. Logbooks are legal documents and are accepted in a court of law. It can serve as proof
of activity at a particular time. It is common practice for logbooks to be counter-signed
by colleagues, especially if important research work is involved.

3. Some projects may involve large teams and last for several years. A well kept logbook
will ensure continuity of the project in case of people leaving the project, going on
holiday, falling ill or other unforeseen events. Therefore the logbook should contain all
the relevant information, and be written in a clear and easily understandable fashion.

How and what

4. Use a bound A4 size workbook, preferably hard covered. It should be ruled on every
page or have alternate pages ruled with lines and graph paper. Write you name and
contacting details at the front and the inner page of the book.

5. Always use a fountain or ball pen, and never pencil, not even for sketches (see 2
above).

6. Cross out any mistakes but do not rub them off or tipp-ex over them. DO NOT REMOVE
PAGES (again 2 above).

7. Date the exercise. Some would date very page and/or include the time.

8. Number the pages, useful if you need to refer to past work.

9. Do not leave blank pages. If you did unintentionally, cross them out.

10. Write directly into the work book. DO NOT use loose paper and copy across.

11. Materials such as computing print outs, photographic pictures, copies of information
from other sources should be kept as part of the record. They can be stored in a folder,
for example, with appropriate notes written both in the logbook and also the folder; or
they can be affixed securely in the logbook, again with appropriate notes. For
important materials, ask a colleagues to date and sign them.

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DEPT OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

What should be included

The logbook should contain information detailing a project from beginning to the end. Its
usage is not confined to the laboratory only. Whether you are conducting an experiment,
having discussion with your colleagues, formulating ideas or planning the project work, use
the logbook to record the activities. More specifically

12. In general you should be able to repeat an experiment or write a report based on the
entries to the workbook.

13. Title of the exercise.

14. Description of the work, including background, aims and method.

15. Experimental set up including list of the instruments used.

16. Data and measurements, with units and errors.

17. Any analysis or calculation that need applying to the measurements.

18. Sketch the measured data, with all the data points included in the sketch. Repeat the
measurements if there are any obvious errors.

19. Brief analysis and conclusions of the exercise.

20. After reviewing the experiment and analysis of the above work, you may need to
perform the experiment again, perhaps using a different approach. Write down the
reasons and describe the new approach.

Some notes on computing experiments and simulation projects

Logbook for computing laboratory generally requires a format different from that described
above. It should be used to record the problems you are trying to solve, the approach
adopted, descriptions of programs and functions, flow charts and outcomes of the programs.
You should also attach program listings, and output print outs such as figures or images (see
12 above).

Several more points before finishing

Whether your logbook should be neat and tidy is very much up to you, as long as you bear
in mind that

21. In general recording the data should not take longer than the performing the
experiment.

22. Remember pts 3 and 12 above, entries into the logbook must be legible.

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Finally, look at the two tables and two sketches below, and imagining they were taken by
hand. Judge for yourself which are acceptable.

Table 47 input/output of something

Vin p-p mV Vout p-p V erro
2.2 or
0.4 r 2.23 0.43256
3.1 0.63 3.1 0.63751
4.2 0.81 X% for in 4.2 0.81
5.4 1.1 Y% for out 5.44 1.13
6.6 1.3 6.6 1.3345
7.1 1.4 7.1 1.4333

or

Output from circuit 42, line trace from oscilloscope

V 0.5V/div

10sec
3sec
2V
t 1s /div

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DEPT OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

Keeping your project’s records

No doubt that you can recall some past activities that were easy to undertake at the
time but you cannot recall how you did these. Not surprisingly, this can easily
happen during the year long project when you start writing it up. Before the
affordable computing era, people used to have paper notebooks that were helpful to
show the amount of effort put to the task, used for patent claims and recovery of
nearly lost data and important pieces of information.
It is possible in principle to keep such project records electronically but there will be
a possibility for some unscrupulous student to show an enormous effort just by
copy/pasting to the electronic record. For this reason the students are given a
conventional notebook where the project records will be scribbled. Consider your
notebook as the paper blog post where you have to date the entries yourself. This
will be a perfect place to note, for example, questions to the supervisor for the next
meeting. The supervisor from time to time will put her/his initials to document the
amount of records put after the previous supervisor’s mark. Your paper blog will
double as the project diary where you will record project progression information
like “code works”, “achieved accuracy of 3% that is still short of the required 1.5%”
etc, give brief description of important information sources and references “source A
has the schematic of practical Wein bridge with amplitude stabilisation using an
FET” etc.
The project workbook will also be a place to describe electronic files associated with
the project. Now, for example, a single PCB design can easily be compounded of
over 10 files, and one frequently needs a few revisions to consider the design fully
completed. Losing or misplacing a single file, being unable to open the design
because of versions incompatibility etc may render the design unusable, and this
can easily happen when your project progresses and the number of project files
grows quickly.
The project workbooks were introduced following an IET requirement from the
academic session 2013/14 only. The academic staff, like the students, are still
learning useful ways for utilising this facility and are being observing and developing
best practices. For this reason the project book itself is used as a supplementary
material for the assessment.