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From Caveman to Chemist: Notebook

You will need a way to organize your work this semester, to keep track of what you have achieved, and to layout the credit you have earned. Your tool for doing this is your notebook, which will double for keeping lecture notes and documenting your projects. No project is passed until it has your instructor's initials in your notebook. Your notebook must adhere to the following rules:

• The notebook must have its pages sewn in. This type of notebook is commonly called a "composition book" and is available from local stores. The key feature of this type of notebook is that the pages are not designed to be removed.
• Use only ink in your notebook.
• Place your notebook face up in front of you with the pages opening at the right. This notebook is for your lecture notes. If you forget to sign the attendance log, your lecture notes can document your class attendance. Leave 2 pages blank at the front of the book for a table of contents. Number your pages from front to back in the upper right hand corner.
• Now turn your notebook over, top for bottom, so that the back cover is on top and the pages open at the right. This notebook is for your projects. As you complete each project, your instructor will initial your notebook, providing you with a record of the projects you have passed. Leave 2 pages blank at the front of the book for a table of contents. Number your pages from front to back in the upper right hand corner.
• Each project description will consist of five parts:
  1. Purpose: A paragraph describing the purpose or importance of the project.
  2. Procedure: A section describing what you plan to do. This may be paraphrased from the webpage description of the project.
  3. Data: A section describing exactly what you did. This may consist of prose and/or lists and should include every detail necessary for you to replicate the project should you wish to do so. It will particularly emphasize any deviations from what you planned to do. Be sure to include units for every number.
  4. Results: Evidence for completion of the project. This will include a passed quiz taped into your notebook. It may also include samples or pictures of materials you produced. When you make paper or twine, for example, you can tape a sample into the notebook. When you make pottery or an electric motor, you can tape in a picture of your project.
  5. Conclusions: A paragraph summarizing your results. How do you know you were successful? What might you have done differently? How does this project relate to others you have done or may plan to do?
  When you have completed these five parts, your instructor will initial your notebook and record your grade. Here is a sample project.
• Mistakes receive special attention in a notebook of this kind. Mistakes are inevitable and are not held against you. But you may decide later that what you thought was a mistake was correct after all. If you have obliterated your mistake, or torn it out of your notebook, you have no way to recover it. For this reason, we simply draw a single line through a mistake. This marks it as a mistake, but allows it to be recovered later if necessary.
• Your notebook is your complete record of you work in the course. No work should be removed from the notebook and none of your work should be documented anywhere other than the notebook. This allows you to have all of your work in a single place. Years from now, when you want to reproduce that fantasic mead, all of your work will be together. You won't have to hunt for loose papers.
• At the end of the semester you will pledge your notebook and sign it.