WEBVTT

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I keep a record of my
research in slow processes.

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So I work from literally
anything I can find,

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it can be a Post-It that's lying
around in my field station,

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or it can be piece of paper.

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And I start writing down some
ideas or things or things

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that I've observed.

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And then afterwards,
once I've started

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collecting some of the data
and that piece of paper

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is getting a little
bit full, I kind of end

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up using more bits of
paper until it really

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forms a journal.

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And from there on, as soon
as it's fixed in a journal,

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I tend to put it towards
an Excel spreadsheet

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because I do like my
numbers on a spreadsheet

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and immediately ready to
go in the computer.

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Whereas on my
journal, I can sort of

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indicate a day-to-day
difference,

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if I change the camera or
if I saw a specific behavior

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outside because I was
studying penguins that day

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and the weather
changed suddenly.

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And I tend to write
that down just

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as a specific, oh by the way,
general note for today's data,

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it was very sunny today.

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I keep a record of my
research in a digital format

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whenever I can.

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So what I mean by that is,
I might collect some things

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in analogue fashion
on notebooks or I'm

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handing out questionnaires to
people or something like that.

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But I prefer to not have an
ever-growing sort of pile

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of paper that gets in
the way and is easily

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accessible by other people.

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So I'll scan, photograph,
type up into Word documents,

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Excel spreadsheets,
that sort of thing

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to make sure I've
got everything in one

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nice, neat, hopefully neat,
folder on my computer.

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I think it's important to keep
a good record of what I've

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done simply because if I want
to look at the data afterwards,

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I need to know exactly what
I did at that given point.

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Sometimes I find that I've
got discrepancies in my data,

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and I'm not quite sure why.

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And then that's always
a wonder, is that simply

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what the data is or
did something different

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happen that day?

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Was it particularly sunny?

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Was it very windy?

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Did I forget to add
this multiplication?

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Or what did I essentially do?

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Anything that's the basis
for me to keep a good record.

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It also makes it easier
for me to explain further

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if I want to publish something
in a discussion saying,

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actually, I did this, this
and that, rather than,

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oh, I forgot step one or two.

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It's better for me to
refer to those differences.

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It's very important that I
keep a secure record of what

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I've done because often I'm
working with human participants

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and it's essential that
all the information I have

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on those participants is kept
anonymised and safe from anyone

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else.

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It's key that only I and they
know about that information.

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There have definitely
been times where

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I have to keep better
record of my work.

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One of the things I think
I can draw from immediately

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is when I was
doing my bachelors.

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I was helping out
with a project

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and usually they're
short-term projects

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working under a professor,

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and it was DNA extraction.
To be very honest,

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I can't even remember what
the short-term project was,

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but we had to extract DNA
from a specific animal.

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And we got results from
that a few weeks afterwards.

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And then we realised that it
was very different from what

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they expected.

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And then, of course, the
question came back to me

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saying, OK, so how did you
get these results exactly?

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Well, I'd made like
a proper lab journal,

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as we were taught
during our bachelors.

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I found out that a couple
of the steps were missing

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and it could very
well been that I

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added too much millimetre
of a certain compound

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in there, which altered
the results altogether.

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So that was one
of those, oh dear, I

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should have noted this
down specifically

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for every time.

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But simply because I'd
been doing it every day

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for the past eight weeks,
it hadn't come to my mind

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that I had to write
these things down

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because it felt so
natural at the time.

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So that was definitely a
learning moment for me,

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where I thought if I just
kept meticulous record of it,

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that would have made
my life a lot easier

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and I could have simply gone
back to the professor and said,

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oh, sorry, I think I
made a mistake here,

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rather than us having to go
through the entire thing again

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to find out that it
was probably a mistake.