31st October 2013, 11:29 PM
And that was me with my diplomatic head on! 
:p
Maybe our context sheets/fieldwork manual are well designed then, because the only opportunities to call something a ditch, or pit, or posthole or whatever are within the clearly defined Discussion/Interpretation section of the context sheet or in the title of a drawing or photo. With the latter I can't imagine anyone takes any notice of anything other than the context number so you could write 'pigeon' and no-one would care... and the manual is very clear as to the words you should use for each part of the descriptive process. This is a good thing in general, but occasionally feels overly restrictive, and makes you think very hard about how you then write your interpretation. Again, not a bad thing in itself I guess.
As to your last point I think it's a two way thing. Yes, us diggers could do a better job if we could see more of the picture, but I also think that maybe there needs to be more input to the final picture from the digger - even the most inexperienced digger will have a better feel for a feature (even if they can't interpret it/understand it) than someone who hasn't stuck their trowel anywhere near it. Maybe.
:pMaybe our context sheets/fieldwork manual are well designed then, because the only opportunities to call something a ditch, or pit, or posthole or whatever are within the clearly defined Discussion/Interpretation section of the context sheet or in the title of a drawing or photo. With the latter I can't imagine anyone takes any notice of anything other than the context number so you could write 'pigeon' and no-one would care... and the manual is very clear as to the words you should use for each part of the descriptive process. This is a good thing in general, but occasionally feels overly restrictive, and makes you think very hard about how you then write your interpretation. Again, not a bad thing in itself I guess.
As to your last point I think it's a two way thing. Yes, us diggers could do a better job if we could see more of the picture, but I also think that maybe there needs to be more input to the final picture from the digger - even the most inexperienced digger will have a better feel for a feature (even if they can't interpret it/understand it) than someone who hasn't stuck their trowel anywhere near it. Maybe.