Ethnography Project
Ethnographic Field Notes
Part 2: Ethnographic Field Notes
Before beginning your field work you should have read the e-reserve article on participant observation from the
book Becoming a Qualitative Researcher. This chapter outlines what it means to do field work and how you
should go about your observations of the subculture you are studying. If you have questions about this chapter,
please come see me during my office hours.
A. What should my field notes look like?
Writing down your observations while being a participant in a cultural activity is not easy. Every
anthropologist has her own system of documenting observations in the filed. Generally, the anthropologist
tries to describe the culture that are studying using what Clifford Geertz termed, thick description. Think
description is a very detailed description of the activities and behaviors you are observing. In describing a
social setting thickly, the anthropologist documents conversations she overhears or engages in with the folk,
the geographical space in which the activity took place, the people involved, and the social interaction
between them, as well as the anthropologist’s own reactions to what was witnessed (see attached example).
It is not uncommon that one hour of participant observation produce five pages of thick description.
B. Expectations/Rubric
In order to have something to write about, you will have to spend a significant amount of time as a
participant observer in your subculture of study. The longer you spend with the folk, the more you will have
to write about. Therefore, you will probably need to observe more than once. Here is how I will be grading
your field notes:
Formal coversheet: Title of project, name, date, and class
_______10pts.
Detailed description of the ethnographic setting
(your physical surroundings)
_______20pts.
Detailed description of the people you observed,
including number and gender as well as physical descriptions
_______20pts.
Detailed documentation of “native words” or conversations you
overheard or engaged in with the folk
_______20pts.
Detailed documentations of your own thoughts and feelings while
observing and interacting with the folk (marked separately from
general descriptions) with background research
_______20pts.
Type written, double spaced, 12pt. font and 3 – 6-9 pages in length
_______10pts.
Total Points
100 pts.