keep a good laboratory notebook

I’ve been doing OK in writing in my lab book - it’s amazing how much clearer one thinks on paper, though it takes a lot of practice.

My book is not quite up to date, though. Today I noticed that I fell behind on the page numbering. It would not have happened if the table of contents was a up to date.

I’ve done it again: left things in my book to write up later. How do I prevent this from becoming a bad habit?!

I have sinned. I left a printout in my notebook without sticking it in, or writing anything about it. While I can fix this when I get back to work it bothers me that I did it as an afterthought rather than an integral part of work.

Yesterday I pasted a printout of an MSN Messenger conversation into my notebook, in which I had explained to someone what had gone wrong.

Its the only record of the workings of a lab that is no longer in servive. I wish that I had made a photocopy of the entire thing though, it had to stay in the department when we disbanded. I could have used some of the info contained in it this past year.

I don’t know yet if I’m keeping a good laboratory notebook, but I’m certainly keeping one: I had to buy a new volume today.

Today I was working from home, and of course my lab book is where it should be, in the lab. I missed it. It is very encouraging that the book is becoming so much part of my work.

I think I’m getting the hang of this. This week I actually used some colouring pencils to put more information in my sketches. It was fun!

I’ve just spent the morning getting my lab note book up to date. Not putting data in, of course, but making up the table of contents and numbering the remaining pages.

I am getting quite proud of my notebook. He’s developing character and force of expression. He seems to be getting more circumspect in his pronouncements and getting structure in his observations.

I’ve discovered that there are many pages on the web about this. They all say more or less the same thing, probably because it is pretty simple. What they don’t say is how much practice it takes to do it well.

One site has a pretty nifty quote: “It’s a note book, not a neat book.”