Finding nourishment vs. identifying poison An Article by Austin Kleon & Olivia Laing austinkleon.com A useful analogy for what [Sedgwick] calls ‘reparative reading’ is to be fundamentally more invested in finding nourishment than identifying poison. This doesn’t mean being naive or undeceived, unaware of crisis or undamaged by oppression. What it does mean is being driven to find or invent something new and sustaining out of inimical environments. I would like to adopt that line as a mission statement: “To be fundamentally more invested in finding nourishment rather than identify poison.” Because you can identify all the poison you want, but if you don’t find nourishment, you’ll starve to death. Poison sniffers hopereadinggoodness
Why Keep a Field Notebook? An Essay from Field Notes on Science and Nature by Erick Greene Pick one thingLab notebooksHybrid journalsA fertile incubatorBest practices
Pick one thing I recently started a field notebook assignment for my upper-level Ecology class at the University of Montana. I asked my students to pick one “thing” and observe it carefully over the entire semester. In addition to their field notebooks, the students also had to suggest at least ten research questions inspired by their observations. One brick seeing
Lab notebooks Most of my colleagues who conduct laboratory research not only keep extremely thorough and complete lab notebooks, but they teach their students how and why to keep data in them. Some labs even have friendly competitions in which prizes for the best-kept notebooks are awarded. In stark contrast to the vibrant culture of keeping lab notebooks in molecular biology, my informal polling suggested a lack of interest in notebooks in field biology. “I have a GPS for that.” “My data are in a spreadsheet.” “I write things down when I get home.” “I have a computer.” The general consensus seemed to be that field notebooks are quaint, archaic, and obsolete in field biology.
Hybrid journals The most useful and interesting notebooks of field biology are hybrids; as well as recording details and data of field research, they record the observations, thoughts, musings, and peregrinations of the author. notetaking
A fertile incubator Another value of field notebooks is their ability to serve as an incredibly fertile incubator for your ideas and observations. By jotting down interesting observations, questions, and miscellaneous ideas, your field notebook can serve as a powerful catalyst for new experiments and projects. notetaking
Best practices Use a hardbound notebook. Keep your contact information in a prominent location. Write for yourself and for posterity. Write pertinent field information with every new entry. You should enter the date, time, and location at the top of every page. Add information on your location. Record your methods. Make backup copies. If you use abbreviations, make sure there is a key in your field notebook. Don’t leave home without it. Form a writing habit. Thomas Jefferson was such an inveterate chronicler of daily events in his notebooks that he even took the time to record the weather four times on the day he helped write the Declaration of Independence. So unless you have something far more pressing than writing the Declaration of Independence, you have no excuse for avoiding your field notebook! Set up a structure for your field notebook. Create an index. Treat your field notebook like a scrapbook. You should view your field notebook as a central clearinghouse for miscellaneous information that is relevant to your research project. If there are related bits of information that you will find useful later on, sketch them, write them down, photocopy them, and staple or tape them in your notebook. Five basic rules indexes