Fieldnotes, Interviews, and Thick Description

Short, cryptic scraps written in the field — a phrase, name, time, or gesture — that act as memory hooks rather than prose.

Narrative expansions of jottings written the same day (ideally within hours), rich in concrete, sensory detail and reported speech; roughly 1 hour of observation = 1–2 hours of writing.

Kept visibly separate from description, they hold your speculation and interpretation — preserving your ability to later disagree with your earlier self.

Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw in 'Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes.'

Inferential notes record only your conclusion and are dead ends; descriptive notes can be re-interpreted later by you or other readers.

An interview where you bring 5–8 open questions plus permission to abandon them, seeking the person's own categories rather than answers to yours.

An open invitation to describe practice, e.g., 'Walk me through a normal Tuesday here' — it elicits practice, not opinion.

Following the speaker's own vocabulary: 'You said the usual guy — what makes someone a usual?'

Leading questions, stacked questions, and filling silences — count to five before rescuing a pause.

From Ryle: an involuntary twitch and a conspiratorial wink look identical; thin description records the eyelid movement, thick description captures the meaning and social context.