A Word About Laboratory Notebooks...

    Why keep them? When we enter the world of research, our results, our data, our thoughts, our plans all require some form of tracking. A diary, or a journal of some kind is essential. But it must be useful! Two years from now, I must be able to return to my lab notes and be able to understand what was done and what was seen. I should be able to recreate the experiment from the notes on hand. It needs to be a functional record. It helps to put a table of contents (or room for such) at the beginning, and to write summaries of your work periodically. If this were a "real" laboratory notebook, I would recommend weekly and monthly summaries. For a classroom laboratory, a summary of each experiment is good practice. As a training vehicle, we will have an open-lab notebook exam at the end of the semester, to test how well it serves you. Beyond that, your notebook's design is up to you.