This is not the first thing I’ve read on Didion’s notes, but while quite brief it is the most interesting, as it uses this reporting to start a short discussion of note taking as a practice (with a prompt/invite at the end).
Note taking for me has almost always meant ethnographic field notes, a topic (what, when, how…) that has passionately consumed anthropologists and sociologists for over a century, and many discussions with colleagues and students (can you teach how to do field notes, or at least several ‘hows’? well, I have tried!)
And yes, taking notes on conversations has always been a large part of my own note taking, as people are naturally taking with each other all time in the workplaces and other sites I’ve studied, and I’m listening in (eavesdropping as a profession… a newspaper story actually used that as their description of me).
The hardest thing by far is trying to take notes while you are simultaneously trying to do the job that is the focus of your study; I mean, your supervisors and coworkers of course want to see you working hard! And anyway it is not very practical, as it can be disruptive. When I was working as a 9-1-1 dispatcher I did try to take very brief notes on what was happening in the center, and the calls I had taken - mainly as reminders of what I needed to write about in detail later, when I had the time (on a break, or after my shift). But even then, I was often too exhausted to do that regularly or well, so my wife (also an ethnographer) came up with the idea of having a focused conversation with me when I got home, prompting me to remember things, and to elaborate and explain. We recorded these conversations and I would review and often transcribe at least parts of them afterward, taking notes… notes on notes. That ended up being very helpful!
This is not the first thing I’ve read on Didion’s notes, but while quite brief it is the most interesting, as it uses this reporting to start a short discussion of note taking as a practice (with a prompt/invite at the end).
Note taking for me has almost always meant ethnographic field notes, a topic (what, when, how…) that has passionately consumed anthropologists and sociologists for over a century, and many discussions with colleagues and students (can you teach how to do field notes, or at least several ‘hows’? well, I have tried!)
And yes, taking notes on conversations has always been a large part of my own note taking, as people are naturally taking with each other all time in the workplaces and other sites I’ve studied, and I’m listening in (eavesdropping as a profession… a newspaper story actually used that as their description of me).
The hardest thing by far is trying to take notes while you are simultaneously trying to do the job that is the focus of your study; I mean, your supervisors and coworkers of course want to see you working hard! And anyway it is not very practical, as it can be disruptive. When I was working as a 9-1-1 dispatcher I did try to take very brief notes on what was happening in the center, and the calls I had taken - mainly as reminders of what I needed to write about in detail later, when I had the time (on a break, or after my shift). But even then, I was often too exhausted to do that regularly or well, so my wife (also an ethnographer) came up with the idea of having a focused conversation with me when I got home, prompting me to remember things, and to elaborate and explain. We recorded these conversations and I would review and often transcribe at least parts of them afterward, taking notes… notes on notes. That ended up being very helpful!
"I said I supposed he was saying that I wasn’t always right." Classic Didion.
Alicia Kennedy has a very nice essay on nite taking practices — https://www.aliciakennedy.news/p/on-to-do-lists-and-my-notebooks
I recently read my first Joan Didion essay On Keeping a Notebook. Looking forward to reading more of her works. :)