University of Utah Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Laboratory Notebook Rules NOTEBOOK RULES SPECIFIC TO COURSES TAUGHT BY N. COTTER: The lab book need not be new but must be bound so that pages cannot be inserted. Use a notebook that makes a duplicate copy of each page and hand in the duplicate pages. Alternately, you may hand in a photocopy of the notebook. The copy must be an exact copy of the original lab notebook. Leave the first page for the table of contents. Number all the pages. Date and sign every lab, and write in ink -- this is required. Please print your name along the top edge of the front of the book so it is easy to locate when handed back. You must write information in the lab notebook in your own handwriting, although you may tape in copies of the lab handouts, where convenient. You must tape into your lab notebook listings of all programs written and plots generated, (e.g. Matlab programs and plots). The lab book should be complete enough that you could come back next year and repeat the experiment using only the info in the book. Thus, you must write procedures as well as numbers in your lab notebook. You must also draw schematic diagrams in your notebook of every circuit you use. RULES FOR ALL LABORATORY NOTEBOOKS: 1. All entries should be clearly legible and always in ink. 2. The first entries on any page should be the date and your signature. The last entry on any page should be the date it was completed. Once a page has been completed, (which would ordinarily be the same day that you started working on it), never go back and make changes or additions to that page. If some information must be updated or corrected, it should be entered in the corrected form on a new page, with a note referring back to the original entry. This means, for example, that if you send out samples to the analytical laboratory on December 9, you should record the serial numbers on a page dated December 9. When the results come back on December 16, you must record the analysis on a new page - not on the December 9 page. 3. Make entries in chronological order. Leave no blank pages. If your calculations or data haven't carried you to the bottom of a page, draw a large X or otherwise cross out the remaining blank space. Any notations out of chronological order should be indicated and dated. For University use, you may (but are not required to) use the left-hand pages of your notebook for scratch calculations. If you do this, you must write "All left-hand pages are undated scratch calculations" at the top of the first scratch page. 4. Cross out, but do not erase superseded entries. Leave them legible. Never tear out pages. 5. Include adequate topic headings to facilitate later search and indexing. Use explanatory text freely. 6. Show schematics with element values of all tested circuits. Show block diagrams of test setups. Include instrument numbers. Indicate clearly where readings comprising recorded data were observed. 7. Adequately label and reference all curves and coordinate axes. Graphs may be drawn using the rulings in the laboratory notebook, or, for greater precision, graphs may be drawn on regular graph paper which must be secured in the notebook with something equivalent to Scotch magic tape. 8. All your writings, reports, summaries, and the like, pertaining to the project should be made in this notebook. Intermediate calculations, premises, factors involved in the calculations, and all results should be recorded. 9. Try drafting progress reports in your notebook. It's a good way to summarize the results of your work monthly, or at whatever interval reports are required. Your original notebook draft can be comprehensive - it can be easily edited to provide a formal report. 10. In addition to descriptions of the experiments that you perform, your notebook should also include other data that you get from your reading and formal library reseach. Full bibliographic data (excerpt the title, author, publisher, date) should be included, since you will probably want to list them when it comes time to make your final report, or you may want them for one of your progress reports. 11. Any entries that relate to possible patentable material should be dated and signed by the person making them; descriptions of patentable material should also be countersigned, as having been witnessed and understood on the date shown, by another technically competent individual. A full description of such patentable material should also be submitted to (the company's) legal department using the standard invention disclosure forms that are available for such purposes. 12. This notebook is the property of (the company) for your use in R & D project documentation and should remain on file in the laboratories after it is filled or the project is concluded or your employment terminates. The notebooks may then be checked out like any book as the need arises. 13. In case of loss or mutilation of your notebooks, you must: (1) Report it to your supervisor or department head, (2) Write a summary of what was in that book and submit it to the person who is issuing notebooks.