You worked hard for a week and obtained a significant number
of results, but if you didn’t organize your data, they just might be a
scattered mess. You could not work hard for another week and could obtain only
a small amount of data, but if you organize your data well, you can still make
a story. We can still learn important wisdom from a simple story for children, “The
Rabbit and the Turtle.”
I will talk about organizational skills in the next
several posts. I understand the importance of organization, as I was once an
unorganized mess. But I changed my attitude toward organizing skills. When it
comes to hard work, there are limitations because you need sleeping and
refreshing, but for organizational skills, the sky is the limit.
Once you improve your organizational skills, you cannot waste
time looking for your old data. More importantly, without proper organization,
your old data may become forgotten, but with a good organization, your data
will be alive forever, and science should be like that.
Let’s make your first data inventory taking a TEM
measurement. You will make the inventory using spreadsheet software, e.g.,
Microsoft Excel or Mac Numbers.
Basically, if you minimize time to look for your old
data:
(1)
Date is
the number-one most-important thing. If you just started your research, it might be difficult to imagine, but you will look back your data created 5 years ago. Don't forget to put years in the label.
(2)
Sample name should be concise.
(3)
Make simple
notes; you should be able to refer to your experimental notebook.
(4)
If you
will have a lot of data (you will most likely have a lot of TEM data if you are
doing nanocrystal research), you need to highlight the good data. Make it easy
to read it.
An important standard is, even, let’s say, five years
after now, you should still be able to recall the data. Are your data organized
at that level?
Good luck on your organization!
