Acknowledgements

[Silent Bob]

I was just wondering what people's views on how acknowledgement for site work should be given. My unit is reasonably good on most things but I always think that the recognition given in the back of a report leaves much to be desired. For example: you spend 30 days on a site upon which the director has spent 1 or 2. You do lots of digging,drawing, surveying and recording etc.(despite not being officially called a supervisor or even assitant) and at the end of it you end up going down in a list of people who 'worked on site'. Particularly irksome when the illustrators (who have mostly copied the drawings which you did) get separate recognition, especially when your drawing was extra complicated and difficult. Being chucked into a 'worked on site list' is less than helpful if you want to get a better job. It doesn't affect me quite as much now but I don't beleive that it is exactly fair on everyone else.

[Pedant]

What's far worse is having to put "the project was managed by so-and-so" when so-and-so did precisely zip and didn't even manage to make a site visit. And the only thing of note done when "editing" the report was to add their name in the acknowledgements.

Realistically - what would you like to see? I'm not being sarcastic here, btw. Been on both sides - named as "worked on site" or whatever, and written the acknowledgments. You can't detail every person's individual contribution to the site, so what do you put? Surely, like it or not, you're going to end up with "The following people assisted with the fieldwork" or whatever the house style is.

You can always tell a Brummie... but you can't tell him much

[historic building]

Surely you name, or at least your initials, are on all of the various bits of the archive that you produced?

[Orkynowot]

Hmmm maybe just list all the staff in alphabetical order, thats what one of my lcturers did in a journal piece.



May god go with you in all the dark places you must walk.

[1man1desk]

From Silent Bob

quote:For example: you spend 30 days on a site upon which the director has spent 1 or 2.

Someone who spends 1 or 2 days out of 30 on-site is not the 'director', in my view. The director of an excavation or similar project is the person who will be the main author of the report(s), and that person should have been in charge more-or-less full-time on-site. I therefore see the situation you describe as an example of bad practice by the unit and by the individual concerned.

On the original question about acknowledgements, it is not always practicable to give each individual a detailed acknowledgement. Some projects may have anywhere from 30-100 people on site, all of whom may have done some recording work. Even providing a simple list of names can become very cumbersome.

Having said that, in my own field (consultancy, nowadays), most reports go out with a corporate badge and no individuals named at all - not even the main author/editor. You can sweat buckets over a project for 2-3 years, and there is no personal acknowledgement.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished