Who does what which way?

[cjsmith]

Lab notebooks:
Have a separate lab notebook or make drawings and notes all over the manual?
Carbon-copied prenumbered pages or a spiral-bound notebook?
Take them home to do the writeup, or leave them locked up in the lab?
Do your work elsewhere and copy it in, or print it out and staple it in, or record every piece of data by hand directly into the notebook at the time the measurement was taken?
Strike through a mistake or recopy the page?

On every one of these questions, each of my professors insists that the ways the others do things are wrong. It's almost funny to watch them put value judgments on these answers, all the while conflicting massively with each other. At least, it would be funny if the whole mess didn't have consequences for me personally. As a student, I don't get to be self-righteous and snooty; I get to OBEY. It's dizzying trying to memorize three different protocols. Perhaps the bookstore should hand out laminated cards showing the answer key for each professor. Not the answers to the homework or quiz problems, no; the answers to their particular brand of This Is The Way Everyone Should Do Things.

As the quarter wears on, of course, we're supposed to do all these things as second nature. It's like learning to touch-type when every day you get a new keyboard layout.

Homework:
Bother to do the problems or just write enough to show you know how you WOULD do it?
Turn it in during lab, during lecture, or not at all?
Are crossouts or white-out acceptable inside a pile of calculations (because We're Learning Here) or not acceptable (because This Is College-Level Work)?

Etc., etc., etc.
Round a 5 up no matter what, or round to the evens?
Work in groups in lab (because That's The Right Way To Learn), or work alone (because That's The Right Way To Learn)?

In France, when I lived there (1989), there were three different keyboard layouts in common use. In all the computer programming offices I saw, I met not a single touch-typist. My own rapid typing branded me as a bit of a freak.

Comments

[sharya.livejournal.com]

These are the identical answers to what I was going to type, based on my (and my husband's since he's a chemist!) experience as well.

The lab notebook becomes especially crucial in a forensic toxicology situation.

[jcgbigler.livejournal.com]

Glad to see that I'm being consistent with the views of others who work in the field. I think high schools and colleges have far too many "lifers" who don't have the perspective that comes from non-academic real-world experience.

I think a lot of the stupid rules about lab notebooks come from teachers and professors who are trying to do what they think is the "right thing" without ever having actually experienced the "right thing" themselves.