field notebook
Photo taken by Lizzy Baker, AN220, Fall 2017
A field notebook is used to record the day-to-day details of fieldwork. Field notes are used to complete reporting forms, write a final report, and document spatial details of a site that will be used to create the sketch map in ArcMap. A scanned copy of your field notebook is accessioned into the fieldwork data archive at the end of the block. Expectations may vary by course, see below.
Learning Objective: To accurately document multiple dimensions of field work so that the notes and sketches will provide a valuable resource for reporting observations and results following field work.
PREPARING YOUR FIELD NOTEBOOK:
1. On the inside cover: Write your name and phone number (so your notebook can be returned to you if lost) and write the project name/s and number/s documented in the notebook.
2. On the first page of the notebook identify the Research Design:
FOR EACH DAILY ENTRY IN THE FIELD (write the contents below in the back of your field notebook to remind you of the expected and most helpful contents) :
Please write legibly as you will need to scan the notes and submit them to the archive of our field work for future researchers.
AN220 Specific notes and directions:
1. To practice technical writing, please bring your field notebook to class each day. Use it for taking notes on the readings and in-class discussions. You will be able to use your field notebook for taking the Key Concepts Quizzes and the Mapping Final Exam.
Learning Objective: To accurately document multiple dimensions of field work so that the notes and sketches will provide a valuable resource for reporting observations and results following field work.
PREPARING YOUR FIELD NOTEBOOK:
1. On the inside cover: Write your name and phone number (so your notebook can be returned to you if lost) and write the project name/s and number/s documented in the notebook.
2. On the first page of the notebook identify the Research Design:
- Project objectives
- Example: To locate, identify, record, and evaluate all cultural resources within the project area. To contribute to cultural resource databases of the USFS and OAHP to facilitate land management decisions. To generate data-informed information and interpretations about past human action in the forest. To identify specific site characteristics including spatial limits, topographic setting, inferred activities, and temporal affiliations. To identify and synthesize land use patterns relating to past settlement and resource utilization).
- Research question/s
- Example: What were the primary human activities in the MEF, ca. 1850 to 1950?
- Methods (steps to complete the project)
- Example: Type of investigations (reconnaissance, sample, or intensive survey), area to be surveyed
- Expected results (kind, number, location, character, and condition of cultural resources based on existing context documents and background research on the area).
- Example: We expect to identify historic period human activities including mining, logging, homesteading, grazing, and recreation. Features and artifacts associated with these land uses include abandoned historic mines, shafts, adits, mining-related infrastructure, vernacular cabins, and homesteading-related structures. Artifacts expected are associated with each activity including associated debris and artifact scatters.
- Dissemination of the Results (describe the products to be produced and how they will be shared)
- Example: A Final Report conforming to the Colorado Cultural Resource Survey Manual, completed site forms for all cultural resources documented, a public presentation of results to stakeholders.
FOR EACH DAILY ENTRY IN THE FIELD (write the contents below in the back of your field notebook to remind you of the expected and most helpful contents) :
- Date, day (e.g., Monday), time of day work began and ended
- Survey personnel, especially if sub-teams are created
- Project location (outline surveyed and un-surveyed areas on topographic maps, if used), Township, Range, and Section if known, name of USGS Quad, description
- Survey area (if applicable): approximate length, width, area (pace off)
- Methods: systematic pedestrian including transect width, judgmental, vehicle (windshield survey), trails
- Field survey conditions (visibility, weather, heavy undergrowth, steep terrain, etc.). These are the factors that affected our field work.
- Environment (site or survey area):
- topographic features including: aspect, landforms, water/streams (perennial/intermittent), depositional environment
- flora, fauna observed
- soils (including depth and description)
- land use patterns (visible human impacts): fire, cultivation, grazing, recreation, etc.
- For sites observed:
- use SMITH numbers (or agreed upon temporary number) and UTM coordinates (northing, easting, and datum used).
- site type
- take photos and/or draw sketches of representative artifacts and features
- CRITICAL! Create a sketch map of each site encountered. A GPS device will only capture points, lines, polygons. More detail is needed to document a site, such as washes, ditches, slopes, trails etc. that will not show up on base maps but will affect the deposition and formation processes of the archaeological record.
- condition, vandalism, threats, integrity
- cultural materials observed (notable artifacts/features)
- soils and potential for subsurface cultural materials
- Narrative (describe what you and the crew actually did in the field that day from your perspective). Include observations, preliminary interpretations, and reflections on the day's work
Please write legibly as you will need to scan the notes and submit them to the archive of our field work for future researchers.
AN220 Specific notes and directions:
1. To practice technical writing, please bring your field notebook to class each day. Use it for taking notes on the readings and in-class discussions. You will be able to use your field notebook for taking the Key Concepts Quizzes and the Mapping Final Exam.
RUBRIC
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LEARNING OUTCOME
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OUTSTANDING
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SATISFACTORY
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UNSATISFACTORY
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Multiple dimensions of field work are accurately documented so that the notes and sketches will provide a valuable resource for reporting observations and results following field work.
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The field notebook is consistently thorough, accurate, legible, and easily understood by any worker familiar with field research. Each day in the field is thoroughly documented. The quality of the entries are consistently high throughout the notebook. Information is relevant, or possibly relevant, to a thorough understanding and reconstruction of the work and the investigation.
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The field notebook is mostly thorough, accurate, legible, and easily understood by any worker familiar with field research. Each day in the field is documented. The quality of the entries are mostly consistent. Information is mostly relevant, or possibly relevant, to a thorough understanding and reconstruction of the work and the investigation.
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The field notebook is not consistently thorough, accurate, legible, and easily understood by any worker familiar with field research. Most days in the field are documented. The quality of the entries is uneven and appear as an afterthought, completed in haste. Information is occasionally relevant to a thorough understanding and reconstruction of the work and the investigation. However, the notes cannot be trusted as a source of reliable information about the field work.
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