3rd street promenead field notes

location: santa monica, 3rd street promenead, in your field notes, concentrate on describing how people actually construct their behavior. This means that when you’re at your site, you have to watch closely. While watching, think about people as actors- what kind of show are they putting on? How are they doing a presentation of self? And then describe it so I can see. – I mentioned that one way to force yourself to do this is to write in the active voice. So that you always are describing how particular people are behaving. Rather than leaving it at "people are laying around in the park" add a series of more active descriptions: "blue shirt stands up and moves the blanket into the shade." You can get more descriptive than that, but I hope you see how the first sentence is vague while the second sentence describes action. – give people pseudonyms like ‘blue shirt’. whatever helps you remember who they are. This forces you to describe specific people rather than giving vague characterizations of what people "are doing".