My old professor said my dig notes were useless for anyone but me

He tore into my field notes from the 2021 Catalhoyuk dig, saying they were full of personal shorthand that made them worthless for the team. I started using the standard Harris matrix system for every layer, even when I'm tired at the end of the day. It's a pain but now the site director can actually read my work. Has anyone else had to completely rebuild their note-taking method like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

sage_rodriguez24d ago

Ugh I feel this. Ended up taping a checklist of the standard symbols right to my clipboard so I could just copy what I needed. Saved my ass when my brain was fried after ten hour days in the field.

paul_lane802mo ago

Had a field school instructor who said my notes looked like grocery lists... brutal. Switched to the single context system and it felt like learning to write all over again. Took a whole season before my hand stopped cramping from all the extra detail. Now I can't imagine going back to my old messy ways.

ramirez.caleb2mo ago

Ugh, my first dig notes were so bad they probably got used as toilet paper. Took me forever to stop writing like I was leaving myself a crazy person's reminder note.