21st October 2011, 12:54 PM
There seems to be a tendency for some units to use particularly impenetrable reporting styles, particularly the horrendous phenomenon of putting all the useful information like context descriptions in tables in an appendix somewhere at the back so you're endlessly flicking backwards and forwarsd just to understand at a basic level what was found (sadly one of our managers seems quite keen on this but I've managed to escape it so far) - this possibly explains the apparent lack of understanding by some authors of what it was they dug, since they've never been forced into writing a proper site narrative. Certainly here we do (in general) attempt to produce something readable and with only relevent detail (generally its just useful to know that ditch X was 1.2-1.8m wide, not that at segment Y it was 1.37m and at segment Z 1.43m - anyone that anal should go check the archive...). Of course some units have been trying to cut down on detail for years, the absence of levels on section illustrations has been driving me spare for years and some location plans are frankly comedic....