Presampling - Field Sampling: Principles and Practices in Environmental Analysis - page 55

All data, observations, and any other pertinent information must be put directly and
permanently into the project notebook with a nonsmearing pen. Although neatness is
preferred, it is not unprofessional for smudges and crossed out (but not “whited” out)
entries to occur on some or even all pages. For both practical and legal purposes it is
better for the project notebook to be a little less neat but absolutely complete. In Figure
3.1 the entry on line 7 has a part marked out. Entries or even whole pages can be crossed
out, but pages are never taken out of the project notebook. Missing pages are an
indication that serious problems exist. The project notebook should thus be bound rather
than loose-leaf, which means that for large projects there may need to be several volumes
of the project notebook.
FIGURE 3.1 An example of a project notebook.
A standard way of handling entries is to first number all the pages. In Figure 3.1 the page
number is in the upper right-hand corner. Second, it is highly recommended that five to
ten pages at the beginning of the topic be left blank. These pages will be used as a table
of contents. As work progresses, samples are taken, observations are made, and results
are obtained, these will be written up in the body of the topic and noted in the table of
contents. The table of contents tells where these data are located so that when a report is