Science Investigation Record Keeping

Records are the foundation of a report. If you were to work in secret with no thought of ever reporting to others, your record keeping would be altogether your own concern. However, if you want others to recognize what you have done, your records must always be designed to help you in reporting to others. The records themselves should bear inspection by anyone. They should tell anyone reasonably familiar with the kind of work you did all he or she would need to know about your investigation.

Do not depend upon remembering things. Keep a diary or diarylike notes. Each time you do something, write it down or dictate it into a tape recorder for later transcription, record it in a chart or table, make a sketch or a diagram of it, or take a photograph of it. And always, always, date your record, including clock time if this may be important because your diary is also a chronology. For most of your recording use a bound notebook (not loose-leaf), one that lies flat when opened. Write with pen—not pencil. Do not expect to erase. If you need to change a statement, draw a single line through it but leave it so that it can be read, then rewrite the statement. It is best to write double-space in the notebook.

It is perfectly good procedure to write ideas for other investigations in the diary record book as you go along as well as write thoughts about what you might have done better—or thoughts about how well you did do! Think of your record keeping as a rich source of material for your report. It will contain a great amount of material that you will not put into your final report, but the material should be there if needed. Be generous in your record keeping.

If, in your absence, it should be necessary for another person to make observations for you, make certain that he or she is well trained in the work and will do the record keeping at least as well as you would yourself. Identify your substitute's part of the work in the record.

If you find it necessary to make records separate from your notes—such as tape recordings, diagrams, photographs, and charts—number and date each one; refer to them in your notes so that they are tied in to the chronological record.

All of these original records must be preserved. Do not copy and then throw out the originals. Keep them. It is so easy to make mistakes in copying. Then, too, there is a temptation to edit in the copying—to change something so that it looks better. If you need a copy, make one, of course, but KEEP THE ORIGINALS!

All of these record-keeping requirements! Why? Remember that you will forget. Important details may become vague after a while. Or someone may ask a question about your work that you might not have thought about. Your records can help you in your answer. And (who knows?) a hundred years from now someone may be saying. "See! Here is the original record of an early investigation, done long before the fame of later years. Isn't it nice that we have this?"

In the following list other important methods for making records are described. Some are costly, and if your budget does not cover them, that is okay. Just try to make sure that your note-taking and other data-collection methods are done as fully and as accurately as you can make them.