I'm a scientist!

When I started college I actually wanted to be a Bio-Chemist. I think this stemmed from my general love of all things science (And Bio-Chemsitry has TWO sciences right in the name!)

Turns out I'm not very good at chemistry, but along the way I was exposed to the classic chemistry lab notebook. The idea behind the lab notebook is that you write out all the steps you are going to perform ahead of time, and any actions you performed. (oops I added 20ml instead of 200ml, etc ), any observations: (liquid turned blue, and small explosion occurred, etc)

Turns out I wasn't very good at keeping a lab notebook either. (bad penmanship being an obvious problem).

Lately I've noticed that in my current job (AS A DATA SCIENTIST) I've been basically keeping a lab notebook of sorts. This time it's more along the lines of :

Did this query : Select xyz : got this result: 1234 rows

Did this query : Select zzz : didn't see any result with yyy. etc.

Currently this is just a very cluttered text document that I replicate on DropBox, but I could see how some more structure/organization (search, dated, index by project, ?version control?, etc etc) could be very useful. 

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Your notebook will serve as a permanent record of your experimental work. It will contain the information you need to complete your work efficiently and safely, and you will use the information contained in your notebook to write laboratory reports explaining your results. For these reasons, it is important that your notebook be complete and accurate. As a general rule, a good notebook is one from which someone else can repeat your experimental work in the same way that you have done it.

I. General Guidelines:

1. Your notebook must be bound, the pages numbered, and have a carbon copy. 2. Write your name, the course name, and section # on the cover or front page. 3. Always use permanent ink, not pencil.
4. Write it down NOW. Your notebook is a log of what you do as you do it.

5. Use complete sentences.

6. Write everything in your notebook. Weights, temperatures, everything! When recording experimental data, always include units.

7. Do not erase! If you make an error, draw a single line through it, and continue. The original statement should still be legible.

8. Never remove original pages from your notebook. You may remove carbon copies. 9. Date every page as you use it.

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also:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chemlab/info/notebooks/how_to.html

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And of course it went electronic..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_lab_notebook