standard of new graduates

[sniper]

agreed, and I am not saying that someone's spelling has to be perfect for them to be a good researcher, but spell checkers and people willing to read through work do exist and should be used. Otherwise it just looks lazy...

++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++

[eggbasket]

<Rant Mode/On>
I agree with Sniper on this one. It appears lazy if the effort is not made to ensure that spelling, grammar and typos are eradicated from reports. It seems to me that the purpose of a report is to communicate the information contained therein to a wider audience. If the text is ambiguous or difficult to read then the report fails in that purpose. Poor spelling and grammar can contribute to this and I would suggest that with the advent of spelling and grammar checkers there is even less excuse for such mistakes.

I review reports regularly and have found a distressing tendency for them to be poorly written and to require significant amendments to make them "fit for purpose". This is partially due to poor spelling and grammar, and appears to be partially due to a poor editing process at source. Personally, I would be ashamed to send such reports out, even as drafts, because they reflect particularly poorly on the author(s) and their editors, and hence on the unit for which they work.

Going further afield, it seems to me that archaeologists are not being taught to write well these days, and that the report production process is extremely mechanistic, with the result that reports are often rather ?samey? and boring. There is little attempt to produce an interesting, synthetic report that communicates the results of the work appropriately. I know some project managers who do encourage this sort of writing but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule and many of those who write the reports seem unwilling to tread this path. Of course, this is not to say that all archaeologists fail in this regard but there appear to be a significant number who do. This really goes beyond spelling and grammar, and reflects on how archaeologists think about and analyse their sites.
<Rant Mode/Off>


Cheers,
Eggbasket
Gentleman Adventurer and Antique

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, the ringing's in your head"

[1man1desk]

quote:If the text is ambiguous or difficult to read then the report fails in that purpose.

from eggbasket

This, coming from a self-confessed periphrastic sesquipedalian?

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[the invisible man]

I thought they were extinct?

Today, Bradford. Tomorrow, well, Bradford probably.

[sniper]

in response to eggy, I do find that the results sections of my assessment reports do tend to be rather samey because I am essentially communicating the same data, just with different numbers, and it seems pointless to try and alter the way it is written. Interpretations are interpretations, and therefore have to be different for every site and should not follow a strict formula. I suppose part of the problem with archaeological reports is that they are part scientific and part artsy and it is sometimes tricky to try and accommodate both in one report.

++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++

[eggbasket]

If you are communicating the same information then the results section of your report will be similar to all previous ones. I am thinking, for example, more about the site reports where you get endless descriptions of contexts and strat in the main body of the text, much of which does not actually add to the value of the report and could therefore be restricted to the context list in the appendix, thus ensuring that only the salient points are mentioned in the main text. This approach would emphasise the important aspects of the site rather than leaving them to be lost amidst the dross. It would also make for a more readable report that actually communicated the important information. Another bugbear of mine is lack of interpretation. All too often I read that a particular fill contained pottery from a particular period, but there is no mention of whether it is residual, intrusive or can actually be used to date the fill, unless I trawl through the finds reports and interpret the site myself on the basis of the information given therein. Essentially, if the text leaves me asking questions about the site and its interpretation, then it has failed in its objective. And I believe that I see more reports that fail in this regard than succeed. More thought needs to go into the structure of the report and its content. Essentially, I believe that reports should be more synthetic. The basic evidence is contained in the catalogues and context lists, so I do not need to read it all in the main body of the text. Instead, the main body of the text should synthesise that information and emphasise the important aspects of the site, drawing out the site "story". If there is little evidence, then this "story" should be short and not padded out with descriptive material that is in the appendices. Is this asking too much?

Cheers,
Eggbasket
Gentleman Adventurer and Antique

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, the ringing's in your head"

[troll]

Agree completely on all counts.Not only are a large proportion of excavation reports inadequate and "conveyor-belt" bread and butter,some are simply contrived nonsense. The reports that find their way onto your desk eggie are a snippet of what we`ve all been banging on about for years-it`s just not working at a systemic level. I really do feel the way forward is to embedd practitioners of the industry in the teaching frameworks of the degrees. Simple writing skills can be taught alongside the mechanics of report writing. The disturbing part of this is.....if we`re not all using the same language, how do we understand eachother? If graduates have`nt grasped the concepts involved in report writing-they`ve been very badly let down by their universities.

[Cautionary Tale]

One thing to bear in mind is the standard report 'template' that the IFA have produced, which presumably all the RAOs are following. If we have a converyor belt of turgid reports, and I'm not arguing that we don't, then lets have a look at the best practice example set by the IFA. If we don't like it, lets lobby to change that one. If that can't be done, lets have a BAJR report template (though the thread discussing thermal bras and 'bun' warmers makes me worry about what the cover logo would be )

(I really have worked in the field)

[mercenary]

quote:I am thinking, for example, more about the site reports where you get endless descriptions of contexts and strat in the main body of the text, much of which does not actually add to the value of the report and could therefore be restricted to the context list in the appendix, thus ensuring that only the salient points are mentioned in the main text.

For once eggbasket I think I disagree. I hate writing and reading the boring description of strat in reports and would much rather concentrate on the fun discussion and conclusions sections. But I have discovered that the process of actually writing the sequence to be a massive aid to filtering out erroneous interpretations. Many of the interpretations that I initially formulated during excavation and survived to the report writing stage are seen to be rubbish when the strat description is worked out.

I don't know why this is the case, but it is how my brain works. Perhaps I am doing my post-ex strangely because I've never been taught a standard method. (But then who has?) Putting the context description tables and matrices in the apendices and ignoring the strat descriptions in the text just allows the lazy report writer to do the interpretive stuff too early in the post-ex process in my view.

Perhaps the reader of my reports finds the strat description segment tedious in the extreme (my boss calls my reports "workmanlike")B), but it should be an essential part of the report. I've seen far too many reports where this groundwork has not been done, and the resulting interpretations and phasing are riddled with flaws.

[sniper]

like I always include a catalogue of skeletons in the main body of my analysis reports. It annoys me intensely when I see reports on the human remains from a cemetery excavation tucked away at the back as an appendix (usually after pottery and animal bone), with a brief discussion and virtually no data about the individual skeletons. Non-osteos may find it very long and tedious, but a good descriptive and fact filled burial catalogue is incredibly useful to other osteos.

++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++