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Field work

File a field report

The difference between a story and a record is paperwork. Fill the form — on site or after — and the page composes a clean report you can copy, download or print. Nothing is sent anywhere; the draft stays on your device.

What the report covers

How to write one worth filing

A report that can be checked beats a story that can only be retold. Write what happened in the order it happened. Give times. Say what you ruled out — the draft through the door, the plumbing, the tour group upstairs — because the eliminations are the part a second reader can actually use. If equipment was involved, name it and note the baseline.

Mark what is memory and what is record. "I remember hearing" and "the log shows" are different kinds of paper; the archive grades them differently, and so should you. If someone else was there, note what they said they perceived separately — agreement written down independently is worth far more than agreement reached afterwards.

Corrections to the record

If a dossier here is wrong — a date, a name, a demolition that already happened — the fix is a source with a better claim. The citation for every file is printed at its foot; quote it, name the better paper, and the amendment lands where all amendments land: the latest page. How the archive weighs sources is written out in the methodology.