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by asynchronous13 5038 days ago
My background is in Electrical Engineering, and we were always taught to keep a work journal with specific features so it would be a legal document. I just figured they were trying to sell us the more expensive notebooks. That is, until some colleagues were called to court to testify in a patent challenge about the contents of their journals (regarding work from 10 years prior). I take my journal a lot more seriously now.

If the notebook is bound (can't add or remove pages), with pre-numbered pages (proves no pages added or removed), and entries are dated, it's pretty much automatically admissible in court. Loose or missing pages, hand written page numbers, missing dates -- won't necessarily make it inadmissible, but it leaves room for the work to be challenged by the opposing team.

2 comments

They taught me to have it signed, by myself and someone else every day.
"If the notebook is bound (can't add or remove pages), with pre-numbered pages (proves no pages added or removed)..."

Does anyone know of a good place to get an inexpensive (and leatherless) one of these? I would say any notebook would work, but I haven't ran on to many with numbered pages.

Sadly I've never run into a notebook with pre-numbered pages. I did buy the Think/Create/Record for less than 4 bucks. Numbering them isn't as time consuming as you'd think them to be. Someone mentioned composition books, they're leatherless and inexpensive.
The National Brand Computation Notebook is popular. $12 from Amazon.

I have used them for years.

Those are my favorite. I used those a ton in grad school and I highly recommend them. The only downside is that they are pretty large.

For my walk-around notebook that I carry to meetings for notes, etc, I use a quad ruled Moleskine. The pages aren't numbered, but they are permanently bound.

Does anyone know a UK supplier for these or similar?

I've been after a decent notebook for about 10 years but all you can get here is crap.

Thanks for the tip - nice notebook - I wish I could get a nice hard cover book WITH numbered pages.
Available off of amazon: http://www.leuchtturm1917.com/

I switched from moleskines, and have been quite happy.

nice tip
Check out accountants' Journals, they have lined paper rather than quadrille, but they work well.
I got one of those from a friend doing research at University , her department always has a good stock of them.