My first set of field notes came back with more comments than content. Not because the observations were wrong, but because I had written them like a paper: argument first, evidence arranged to support it.
What the supervisor wanted
What happened, in order, in plain language, with the things I was unsure about marked as unsure. The interpretation comes later, in a different document, where it can be argued with.
Write down what you saw before you decide what it means. You cannot un-decide later.
It is a harder discipline than it sounds. I keep catching myself smoothing a detail because it complicates the story I already want to tell. The second set came back much cleaner.
