IFA RO only as approved contractors

[BAJR]

Could a curator list these reports for supplying to RO assessors - as there is obviously a problem.?

[Dinosaur]

Ignoring all the bad spelling/grammar, the overall format of some units' reports makes them virtually impenetrable. While it presents all of the information, long paragraphs detailing every dimension and detailed soil descriptions for every one of a line of fifteen postholes are likely to make any reader give up, and frankly anyone that interested will probably have gone back to the site archive anyway...and then there's the opposite where all of the description/finds info etc has been banished to a set of tables somewhere in an appendix - again, after 5 minutes the reader (this one anyway) usually winds up screaming and hurling the hateful thing across the room in despair. The variant is where the whole thing was clearly originally written up as tables then bodged together into 'prose', resulting in endless repetition without any 'flow' - aaahhhh! Any half-competent author should be able to keep the thing readable, otherwise what's the point, no one is going to read it!....that could of course explain the lack of editing...

The best reports tell a story without boring the reader too much along the way?

[BAJR]

I can only say a resounding hear hear.

This is perhaps the start of a new thread

Writing for archaeologists.

[Sith]

Ignoring all the bad spelling/grammar, the overall format of some units' reports makes them virtually impenetrable. While it presents all of the information, long paragraphs detailing every dimension and detailed soil descriptions for every one of a line of fifteen postholes are likely to make any reader give up, and frankly anyone that interested will probably have gone back to the site archive anyway...

Have you been reading my mind again Dino? I've worked with a couple of contractors who's house style is best described as 'comprehensively dense'.

The best reports tell a story without boring the reader too much along the way?

:face-approve:

[P Prentice]

I'm sick of this RO thing, one curator informed me I could not practice as a sole trader as I was not an RO and that it was English Heritage Law! What....! Is it not a restriction of trade to stop non RO companies trading? Let us not forget that archaeologists working in this country need not be qualified, registered or indeed experienced to legally practice archaeology in th UK.

Does anyone know if it's possible to be banned from a county/district because draft reports submited needed editing?

should be banned on the basis of this post - i rest my case

[Dinosaur]

Bad morning?

[Sith]

I think spelling and grammar is not a valid reason to request a contractor to amend a report.

Does that include me? As a consultant I would not hesitate to return a report that had been badly written and presented. I'm obviously not talking about the odd typo as these will always slip through the net, but beyond that it should be a matter of professional pride for the author and contractor to only send something out that they believe to be complete and accurate.

As has been mentioned previously, I do sometimes wonder what input the long lists of checkers and reviewers actually had into the reporting and editing process. Sometimes these things put me in mind of the closing song from a (now ancient) series of Alas Smith and Jones, which included the lines: 'Here's a list of cast and crew, Christ alone knows what they do'.

[Sith]

<(slightly) off topic>

as an aside, my typo of the day award goes to the IfA. From today's member's email bulletin:

Charity calendar
The University fo Reading have a charity calendar available to raise funds for the Silchester Town Life project. If you would like to buy one, please contact XXXX at XXXX. The calendar costs ?8.

At first glance I thought it was some kind of street slang to get down wid da diggaz, as I believe they say in the dig house.

<on topic>

[vulpes]

shocking :0

[Wax]

I presume that having worked their way through a degree most archaeologists should be able to put a sentence together. Or is that too much to hope for? Personally I would put myself in the boarder line dyslexic category. I cannot spell even with years of extra tutoring something in my brain does not make the connection between the sound letters make and how they form words. I have a degree but the written side of it was blooming hard work and report writting does not come easy but I do at least try and make things intelligible.

Ps I hate spell checkers as they keep putting the wrong words in and I don't see it.