13) Pens and Notebooks Philosophy

Professionals have a responsibility to take good care of their tools. For engineers and scientists, those tools include their pens and notebooks. If we recognize their importance to our work, and if we invest properly in their selection, use, and maintenance, then our work will benefit from those tools. There is a saying that “those who are successful wrote it down.” This comment is not just relevant for authors, for whom writing is their main trade, but is also applicable to any profession. “Writing it down” means taking notes to make sure that critical details are not forgotten and to create a record of the work.

High-performing secretaries take notes for phone messages, rather than relying on memory, and engineers and scientists should use the same approach for their research. In addition to helping avoid memory lapses, detailed notes can also be used to reconstruct experiments and sequences of activities in the event that something goes wrong. Having such a record on hand saves time and can yield a beneficial result.

13.1 The Importance of Notebooks

Notebooks are primarily important because they provide a convenient, centralized repository for taking notes. Rather than using looseleaf paper, post-it notes, or other types of paper, a notebook helps minimize the risk of losing key information along the way. By using a standardized notebook it will also help you gain credibility and establish your professionalism with others in the industry who use notebooks and will expect you to do the same.

Having one place for all your notes will save you time when you write papers or conduct analysis. Rather than sorting through piles of papers to find the ones with the information you need, a notebook will give confidence that the information is all in one place. With that approach, the risk of losing important data or findings is minimized. In addition, by having the relevant information in one place, the full arc of the project from concept to final analysis will be straightforward to demonstrate and reconstruct.

The lab notebook is considered a legal document that can be used as evidence in a court of law in disputes about intellectual property or academic integrity. If an engineer files a patent based on her research, she can use her lab notebook as evidence about the date and scope of the invention. Well-maintained lab notebooks (with dates, witness signatures, etc.), are worthy of admission in the court of law as evidence. For disputes about intellectual property, this feature of the lab notebook can help your case. Let’s say an engineer invents something on November 1, 2015, and files a patent on it in October 2016, which is within a typical 1-year disclosure window. In the meantime, someone else might invent something very similar in January 2016 and file a patent in April 2016. Though the second inventor’s patent application is filed first, a properly managed lab notebook can help the first inventor protect their right to use the same method or apparatus.

Because of the importance of lab notebooks, in private industry it is not unusual to check out your notebook at your first day on the job and then to return it on your last day. From the perspective of the company, they own all the IP within the notebook, and so taking the notebook with you when you leave would be equivalent to industrial espionage. Therefore, researchers working in an industrial setting would be wise to avoid putting personal ideas or information inside the notebook.

Dr. Webber’s personal comment: I carry my notebook with me to almost every professional setting. I bring my notebook with me to home, work, and on travel in my briefcase. I also often take it to meetings that I suspect will generate important comments or information I need to capture, even if it is awkward to use at a lunch table. And, I keep the notebooks: I have my notebooks continuously back to the early 1990s. I treat the notebook with the same care as a wallet or passport, and have never lost one.

Due to the importance of your notebook, make sure to write your name and contact information inside the front cover, just in case. 

13.2 Selecting Pens and Notebooks

Because notebooks and pens are important, it is good to be mindful in selecting the right ones to use. There are several factors to keep in mind.

Selecting Notebooks
For notebooks, there are several factors to consider: size, paper type, binding type, and cover. Pick a size that is large enough to paste in cut-outs, images, and other items that are worth keeping, but small enough to fit in your briefcase or purse that you use for work. Standard sizes are 10-3/8” x 8-1/8”, which is about the same footprint as a standard piece of office paper. Consequently, it will fit in most file drawers, folders, and briefcases. If your research requires you to paste in a lot of printouts that are 8.5” x 11”, then it might make sense to get a larger notebook to avoid having to trim papers before inserting them, but those can be unwieldy.

In addition to the size, paper type also matters. Use archival, acid-free paper so that the notes last a long time. Paper, well-maintained, can last hundreds of years—much longer than film or digital records. The lab notebooks for groundbreaking scientists such as Albert Einstein are treasures. If they had used paper that degrades over time, then those treasures would not be avail-able today. Lab notebooks come with a range of page design styles, including ruled, grid, blank, or ledger-styled. Generally speaking, for note-taking, ruled pages are best, whereas for taking data and preparing diagrams, grid-styled is best. Blank offers the most flexibility.

The binding, thickness, and cover also matter, as they affect the notebook’s usability. It is important to get a lab notebook that will open wide and lay flat to enable easy note-taking. If the binding does not open wide or lay flat and stay that way, then note-taking will be a frustrating exercise and might require two hands. Traditional or spiral bindings do not lay flat, and looseleaf papers in 3-ring binders are at risk of getting lost or out of sequence. Furthermore, the rings get in the way of writing and reduce the usable area on the page. Bindings with glue and stitching instead of tape or perforation lasts much longer and keeps the papers firmly together. The cover should be firm enough to provide a stable writing surface even if working on surfaces other than a desk. Attached ribbons can be useful as place-holders or bookmarks. It can also be beneficial to use a consistent size and style over your career to simplify storage, access, and retrieval of information.

Selecting Pens

The writing instrument is also an important piece of the researcher’s toolkit. Pens should be used instead of pencils. Ink has better longevity than pencil lead and cannot be as easily manipulated. Both of those features are important for establishing the notebook as a permanent, legal record. Pens should be of a design that does not leak at low pressure (for example, on air planes). And the ink should be quick-drying, water-resistant, and fade-proof so that it lasts centuries and will not smear. Most pens, and especially ballpoint pens, felt-tip pens, and erasable pens, do not meet these criteria, as the ink fades quickly or can be ruined by exposure to fluids.

Blue and black ink are standard for legal documents and notebooks. Black ink is recommended for notebooks and blue ink is recommended for signing legal documents (as it is more easily differentiated from photocopies). Fountain pens with archival ink are often the best option. The highest quality fountain pens have nibs made out of a soft metal such as gold that adjust over time to the penmanship of the writer, which makes them easier to use as they age. But, they are also prohibitively expensive for most students.

WEG Notebooks and Pens

Dr. Webber expects the students to use and maintain their lab notebooks in the proper way. Consequently, he buys lab notebooks and pens for the students that meet these standards of quality. For lab notebooks, he typically provides the Boorum & Pease Record Book, Record Ruled, 10-3/8” x 8-1/8” Size, 150 Pages (21-150-R). These books are for the students to keep and take with them after they graduate–they do not need to be turned in at graduation. For pens, he typically provides Uni-Ball Vision Elite pens (in black, blue and red colors) as they are an affordable option that write reasonably well yet still meet high standards for fade-proof, leak-proof (while on airplanes), and water-resistant ink. If you need a different style of pen or notebook to meet your needs or preferences, please let Dr. Webber know.

13.3 Using Notebooks

Acquiring the right tools is just the first step. Those tools should also be used in the proper way. For note-taking there are two typical approaches. Either use one notebook per major project or experiment, or combine them all into a single notebook and develop a scheme of signposts and markings within the book to find project-specific information readily. The former approach is typical for large industrial projects with many researchers for which sharing lab notebooks might be common. In that case, having information about other projects would be distracting. For the latter approach, which is the one recommended by Dr. Webber because it’s more space-efficient yet is still a logical way to organize information, a simple chronological order should be implemented.

Each entry should have the date and should proceed in its natural progression of time. Having entries out of chronological order makes it difficult to find information later on. Each entry should be distinguished from the prior and subsequent entries in a very obvious way. The topic or nature of the entry (data from an experiment, notes from a phone call, agenda for a meeting, etc.) should be clearly marked and relevant details should be included. For meetings, marking the meeting location, attendees, time, and topic are useful to include, as they might be relevant after the fact for preparing meeting minutes, reconstructing data, and so forth.
Notebooks that are used and maintained the right way should last for decades and still be accessible as a source of data and information.