Reporter's notebook

Reporter's notebook is the common name for a particular design of writing pad often used by journalists: one that is spiral-bound at the top, roughly four inches wide and eight inches longFact|date=August 2007, with cardboard front and back cover, containing scores of sheets of paper imprinted with horizontal lines. It is also known colloquially as a "skinny notebook"Fact|date=August 2007.

They differ from the similar stenographers' notebooks largely because they are much narrower, which makes them easy to carry. In particular, they are narrow enough to fit in the inside breast pocket of a suit jacket or sportcoat or the back pocket of a pair of trousers. They also fit well in the average human handFact|date=August 2007, making it easy to hold them and write at the same time.

The back cover also contributes to the ease by which they can be written in, because no additional backing is needed.

In recent years, reporters have also turned to small tape recorders, laptop computers and personal digital assistants to record information, but many still use reporters' notebooks. Other professionals, such as law enforcement officers, use similar notebooks.

"Reporter's Notebook" is commonly used as the name of a kind of newspaper or magazine columnFact|date=August 2007 in which reporters write about matters not included in their other articles because they were considered tangential, but which are sufficiently interesting to be worth reporting.

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*Shorthand