1 . Use the first few pages of your lab notebook as a Table of Contents, listing a useful title, date and initial page number for each experiment.

2. Use the last few pages of your notebook as an Appendix: a place to write down frequently used media, methods, formulae, etc. Then, in your experimental write-ups, you can simply refer to p.XX of the Appendix for a particular method, protocol, reagent, material, etc. Saves lots of writing and makes finding useful things easier.

3. After you start the write-up for each experiment, leave enough blank pages for that experiment so that you can complete the write-up on those pages even if you don't finish all the parts of it for days or weeks later. This keeps all the information about a particular experiment on one set of consecutive pages. When you have two or three experiments going over the same few days, it is much easier to make sense of your write-ups for each experiment if they are set apart, rather than going from one experiment to the next page by page as you do parts of them. Don't worry about wasting pages. You'll get the hang of guessing pretty well.

4. Also, consistently note the time and date that you start or complete different parts of the procedures. Each time you start a new step in your write-up, give it a number or letter in consecutive order. This makes it possible for you to go back and notice differences in elapsed times that could explain funny results, and also helps keep the steps you take in chronological order.

5. Create a page, listed in contents, where you list all the abbreviations that you use. Keep adding to it as you invent new abbreviations. Abbreviations save you lots of time in writing things out - and the list helps you and others remember what those funny abbreviations meant.

6. Take time to make your writing legible. If you type well, use a computer then tape in what you write. When you make a mistake, cross it out and rewrite it clearly. Keeping a good lab notebook simply takes lots of time. It is a major part of doing good research. So take the time! Don't compromise quality by rushing. You will spend more time in the long run with your own research if you keep a second-rate notebook - and you will be more angry and frustrated.

7. Make extensive cross references to materials, methods, results and conclusions from other notebook pages. This cross-referencing is the glue that holds your notebook - and your research - together when you are thinking about what you have done and trying to make sense of it. Cross-referencing is hard, important work. Be very specific about biological material, equipment, chemicals, treatments, techniques, objectives, results or funny results, and ideas described elsewhere in your notebook when you cross-reference.

8. Describe each experiment in enough detail so that someone who has not seen you working would be able to repeat it - and get the same results - based on what you write or append. They should come to the same conclusions you do - if you are logical and complete. This is the heart of any notebook, and every published paper.

9. Save the back of each page (the unlined face) for notes (with numbers, asterisks, arrows to connect them to what you write on the lined pages), and for diagrams or figures or graphs, or for printouts of data, photographs, etc. Feel free to tape pages of loose tabular data, photos, etc. onto these pages. They can fold open if too large. Or you can even tape an envelope to the back cover and insert loose things in it. If you get printed protocols for experiments from other people, don't write them out longhand in your notebook. Simply tape them in!

10. In cases where you have made a complex plan for an experiment, or have a big table of data, or have a critical and sophisticated discussion of results and possible interpretations, write these out on a computer and tape them in.

11. You can use a red pen or highlighter to mark or write things of special interest.

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