Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
a very special audience. Each sponsor has idiosyncratic standards, require-
ments, interests, and funding capabilities. The ethnographer's ability to com-
municate with sponsors will directly affect the success, shape, and tone of the
research endeavor—or whether the endeavor is even undertaken.
Careful and deliberate writing can ensure an appropriate match between
sponsor and researcher. Like an employment interview, the proposal is the first
communication between individuals who must decide quickly whether they can
work together; if so, they must learn to do so.A well-drafted proposal can chart
the way for both the researcher and the sponsor. Clear, direct statements—free
of circumlocutions, jargon, qualifying clauses, and vague, passive phrasing—
can communicate the ideas, how the study will carry them out, and who will
conduct the work and for how much and how long. Shared understandings and
values reduce misunderstandings, miscommunications, and consequent ten-
sions.Ambiguityinvitesmisunderstandingandturmoil.Lackofclaritymayalso
indicate to the sponsor that the ethnographer's thinking is fuzzy.Writing is thus
bothanexerciseinclarifyingthoughtsandplansandaformofself-presentation.
Planning and foresight are essential in ethnographic research. The more
organized the effort, the smoother its progress. The proposal's language and
structure reflect the writer's organization. Committing plans to writing identi-
fies gaps in scheduling and thinking. In addition, proper planning during the
proposalstagecanensurethatenoughtimeandmoneyareavailableforimpor-
tant aspects of the research effort. Improper planning can result in terminating
a project before it has addressed all the salient issues. It can also result in
research that follows an aimless pattern, like a ship adrift, wasting time and
effort.After the proposal is accepted and the work funded, and after the care-
fully crafted letters necessary to gain entry to the community have been writ-
ten, the next significant writing challenge lies in taking good field notes.
FIELD NOTES
Field notes are the brick and mortar of an ethnographic edifice. These notes
consist primarily of data from interviews and daily observation.They form an
early stage of analysis during data collection and contain the raw data neces-
sary for later, more elaborate analyses. Many field note guidelines and tech-
niquesareavailabletoassistethnographers.Themostimportantrule,however,
is to write the information down.
Fieldwork inundates the ethnographer with information, ideas, and events.
Ethnographic work is exhausting, and the fieldworker will be tempted to
stop taking notes or to postpone typing the day's hieroglyphics each night.
Memory fades quickly, however, and unrecorded information will soon be
