Techniques

Topics

• Keeping a lab notebook
• Recording data
• Preparing a lab write-up
• Making an in-class presentation of your work

You will need a lab notebook - the kind we strongly recommend is sold in the IU Bookstore and is called a "Computation Book." It is just under 9 in x 12 in with a brown cover and yellow quadrille pages which are numbered. It is a good idea to leave the first few pages blank so you can use these pages later for an index for the material in your notebook as you fill it.

You should keep your notebook neat but don't be obsessed with being so neat that you don't record data or make notes while you are actually setting up and doing your experiments. Make drawings and record relevant dimensions. You may also want to cut and paste graphs and plots from the printer in lab. The notebooks will be collected each Monday and returned to you at the Tuesday lab with comments.

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Often you will be recording data in your notebooks in tabular form. You will also be able to save data in text form on a floppy disk. We will also try to have data files, image files (photos or drawings) available on the P360 website for downloading for your data analysis and write-ups. You may also want to save data as application files (e.g. IGOR or Vernier software) for later analysis.

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You will be handing in three write-ups of experiments of your choosing. These should be prepared with a word-processing program, along with drawings, graphs, plots and tables. I would prefer that your prepare your drawings and plots and embed the graphics in your document. You should be able to grab many of the drawings and photos you will need from the website for this course. If you need to, you may physically cut and paste into your write-up.

Your write-up should be in 12 pt font with a line spacing of 1.5 and follow this form [minimum page length given within the brackets]:

1. Introduction - a brief statement about the goal of the experiment along with a clear and concise statement of the physics. Include the equations you will need in your analysis. [1 page]
2. Apparatus - describe the apparatus. Include relevant drawings and/or photos. Be sure to include relevant dimensions. [1 page]
3. Procedure and data - Describe the procedure and show data in graphical form. If the graphical representation of your data will be fitted to some function, you may want to show a single graphic with your data and fit in the Analysis section. You should include tables only if they are short (less than a page in length). You may want to bring attention to those aspects of the procedure which could lead to problems with data - that is where systematic errors could be introduced. [1 page]
4. Data analysis - Discuss random and systematic errors in your measurements. Discuss and show fits of your data to relevant functions. If showing a fitted function present and discuss the goodness of fit.
5. Conclusions - This should be a very brief restatement of the goal of this experiment and your conclusions. If the goal is the measurement of a quantity, your answer should include random and systematic errors of your measurement.

A sample write-up will be included here.

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Guidelines for your presentation and suggestions for preparing will be given here soon.

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