APPENDIX E. 
THE NOTE-BOOK. 
A good deal of the effectiveness of any course in botany which 
includes some laboratory work will depend on the way in which the 
note-book is kept. 
It is better to have two books, one unruled, for drawing, the other 
ruled, for written notes.1_ All drawings and sketches should be made 
in such a way as to bring out (as far as the pupil understands them) 
the characteristic features of the organ or structure which is under 
investigation. A sketch in which a good deal of detail is omitted 
will, therefore, often be of more value than one in which the attempt 
is made to represent everything. Shading is in general to be 
avoided. The student will need constant admonition not to conven- 
tionalize what he sees, or to try to give general impressions. He 
would, if unguided, very likely represent the cross-section of conifer- 
ous wood, magnified 150 or 200 times, by a set of cross-hatchings, 
with the lines crossing at oblique angles, thus forming a set of very 
regular, diamond-shaped figures. The best antidote to this tendency 
is to confront the conventionalizer at every turn with a camera lucida 
drawing of the thing which he has just sketched, or (better still) with 
a photomicrograph. 
The written notes should be kept in an orderly way; and the book 
which contains them needs to be indexed, day by day, as the work 
progresses. , The writer feels convinced, as the result of a good many 
years of experience, that it is a mischievous practice to require pupils 
of secondary-school age to take any notes from rapid dictation. 
Matter which cannot be furnished in cyclostyle or hektograph copies 
to every pupil should be dictated orally, very slowly, or else posted 
* 1An excellent note-book in which the pages are alternately ruled and blank, as 
recommended by Prof. W. F. Ganong of Smith College, is furnished by the Cam- 
bridge Botanical Supply Co. 
