ABSTRACT
Documentation is of critical importance in any system of good laboratory practices; it is also a difficult word to define. Documentation also may be electronic, that is, recorded using a computer. Documentation must be honest, secure, and verifiable. Standard practices have evolved in order to meet these documentation requirements. Laboratory notebooks are a laboratory investigator's primary data collection document. The notebook documents the honesty and integrity of data that are published in research journals and used in grant applications. Laboratory notebooks can be subpoenaed in litigations. Many organizations have documents that instruct personnel in how to perform particular tasks. In a research laboratory, people might call these documents “procedures” or “protocols”.
