6 LABORATORY NOTEBOOKS Available to Purchase

Every student of mechanical engin‐eering has to do laboratory work. Very often, students record laboratory data, including results, on a loose sheet of paper which is destroyed once a report is written. So long as it is sufficiently intelligible for a few days until the laboratory report is completed, information is often recorded as quickly as possible, however haphazard or untidily. Surely this, wherever it occurs, is bad training? Students should be taught that a permanent, concise account of laboratory work, recorded in a logical way in the laboratory, is as important as a formal report. The two should be complementary.