Lab 6 - Retrospective on Lab Notebooks

In lab 6 I spent 5-10 minutes one-on-one going over lab notebooks. These were good discussions.  Some comments:

1. There is a wide range in style.
2. Several students are using electronic notebooks.  Some of these are local applications and some are in the cloud.  If yours is a local application be sure to back up the content!. There is a wide range in notebook quality.
4. Not everyone seemed satisfied with their notebooks.
5. Here's a strategy for improving your notebook:
--- Refer to the checklist in the material for Lab 1.
--- Review your notebook against the checklist.
--- Pick an area to improve.
--- Spend extra effort on that area until you see improvement.
--- Iterate.
6. Some notebooks didn't record lab procedures. These are necessary to reproduce a result.  Imagine you will be handing your notebook to a colleague who will use your notes to re-do an experiment.
7. Good notebooks can save you in the future from extra work redoing stuff that you just didn't bother to record. Get in the habit of recording a little more than you think you need to.
8. When something is puzzling, make a note of it in your notebook.  A puzzle is meant to be solved.  Solving puzzles yields understanding.  You should not just let an inconsistent result stand without tracking it down or at least making an obvious note of it.

Except for those of you to whom I gave a "bye" for further rounds, I will review lab notebooks in class again. At that time we will make "improvement contracts". In the meantime, use the feedback provided and these comments as an opportunity to improve your practices. Out in the wild you will find it necessary to keep good lab records in order to make reliable progress on a project and be confident of the results.