ANST - Documentation (wordy)

[Dory Grace]

The good Baron Michael Silverhands wrote:

>Thank you for characterizing my long-winded blather as "logical deduction". I
>*try* to be both brief and complete, really I do, but sometimes the brief
falls
>short, and you know what *that* means... <g>

Why, no....whatever do you mean? ;->

<snip>
>Let's take a similar approach
>to judged A&S events: if someone shows up with no documentation, hand them a
>one-page form to fill out (the "A&S_EZ"? <g>), with places for the absolute
>minimum information. I.e.:
 
<general outline snipped>

>I agree with the "standardized template" for documentation. (Not that
everyone
>has to use the same form, but that everyone's documentation has to have a
>certain minimum set of information.) And I heartily endorse the
development of a
>"standardize template" for judging. 

At the risk of causing hands the kingdom over to fly furtively to mouths in
dismay, let me share that "back in Artemisia" we did something similar to
this. We developed a documentation template that was available for folks to
either use as a guide to writing up their documentation, or to just address
right there on the sheet of paper the template was on. The reason we
developed the template was because so many people were just absolutely
terrified by the thought of documentation. A few folks cringed mightily at
the thought of "forms" or the fear of "more paperwork," but it was really
neither. Just a guide that outlined what was required for minimum
documentation. Overall, the populace loved it. We ended up getting more
folks participating in A&S competitions because we had taken the big
mystery-threat of documentation and distilled it down to a set of about a
dozen questions and let them decide whether they wanted to write it up in
essay format or just jot down the basic answers to the questions. Many, if
not most, of the artsans who did the "fill-in-the-blank" method quickly
moved on to putting together more complete and concise documentation on
their own, mostly because now they had a clue and weren't nearly so
intimidated by the great dark spectre documentation any more.

>But I still don't see the point of scoring
>the documentation, unless the documentation is itself an entry to be judged
>(i.e. a research entry). On the other hand, I realize that many great
minds (and
>egos <g>) have approached this issue, I'm just the "new kid on the block"
adding
>my two cents to the discussion. :-)

Which brings us back to the question of scoring documentation.

>What I'm stressing here is that the *work* loses points, not the
>*documentation*. The *documentation* is proof of the *research*, which is [or
>ought to be] an inseperable part of the *work*. The documentation is
simply the
>vehicle that allows the work to be fairly judged.

And again, I do agree to a great degree. However, there are degrees of
excellence, clarity, concision, completeness, etc. that documentation may
or may not acheive that may or may not get reflected in the scores given to
the work. For example, say a scribe uses Winsor Newton gouache to paint the
illumination on a scroll. She might say in period they used waterbased
paints, and that she used the gouache because it's what she had available
to her. Now, while that's a perfectly acceptable answer, I want to know
that she knows more about *why* it's an appropriate substitute. I want to
know that she knows that the makeup of gouache is very similar to the
makeup of period paints. I want her to tell me why gouache comes closer to
approximating the appearance of period paint than a watercolor might. Now,
whether she just gives me the basic minimum info required or goes the extra
mile to display that she's done her homework, the work will likely score
the same either way, and so giving no visible nod to the extra effort to
gain a better understanding of the craft.  See? By giving documentation a
quantifiable score, it helps to create an incentive to be more concise than
just requiring minimal documentation without any quantifiable value given it.

Also, quite frankly, I heartily dislike the idea of disqualifying anyone
for not having documentation or having less than minimal documentation. If
someone enters a piece without documentation, or with less than adequate
documentation they will at least get some feedback on other elements of
their work even if they get 0 points for no documentation, or they only get
3 or 4 points on the less-than-adequate documentation.


and you closed with:
>Thank you! It's easy to feel like a complete idiot (or butthead) for
questioning
>the way things are. But I feel it's better to *seem* foolish by asking,
than to
>*be* foolish by remaining ignorant, or by allowing a possibly solveable
problem
>to go unsolved just because you were afraid to bring it up.

I've never considered debating an issue with a mind to bettering
circumstances as foolish. If we didn't throw out opposing ideas and bat
them about, we'd never have as full an understanding of ourselves and our
world (and of exact where we might be when our briefs fall short).  <g>

yours,
Aquilanne


Dory Grace***The Inkwell
Austin, TX

"No matter where you go, there you are."
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