What constitutes good field notes?

Everything that you or anyone else will ever want to look up in that book because they can't find it elsewhere or it's too hard to find elsewhere. Good luck thinking to record all of it. And in handwriting (or not over-abbreviated typing if electronic) that they all can read.

In my case, it is enough information that I can figure it out all over again 20 years later. We have had tons of jobs over the years that are the same tract or nearby tracts requiring the same base information.

I was lucky; I started when the field-book was the data collector. Today; you are lucky if someone uses it to "supplement" the electronics.....

Field notes today; are what ever you want them to be; you are limited only to your imagination. If you think it needs a sketch; or if you think you need to embellish the description; then you probably should. If you think you've covered it well enough in the electronic box; then you shouldn't. What would be prudent? What would be most cost effective? What would your boss [mentor] do? These are the questions you must answer. But do it quick; you're burning daylight....

Drawing! I haven't see none of those since .... I can't remember.

The most helpful advice I have received regarding field notes is that they should tell a story. I use notes to record what I found, used and did, who I talked to and so on. For measurements, electronic data is far superior in my opinion so I cater what I book to the preferences of the person analyzing the data in that regard.

The main thing I like to see in notes these days is a running account of the instrument seup points and backsight points, with measure up information to confirm that entered in the data collector. Then an accounting of point numbers used at each occupation. Add detailed description of control and boundary monuments found or set if a simple field code is note fully descriptive. The raw data file fills in the rest.

I'd love to get a drawing. Even a stick figure schematic of the control arrangement would be a great help. But I despair of ever getting a field crew to produce such a thing again.

All very telling. So far, I've worked with 3 different firms at 3 very different times, each doing pretty different work. My first experience was in 2008, and my crew chief/mentor of the time booked everything down to the rod heights when conducting a topo. I think that made it much easier for him to locate blunders in the data collection because I was very young and inexperienced and often made mistakes. His notes were by far the most thorough, and the next firm I worked at followed the principle of recording instrument heights and pertinent information about critical points we'd recorded during the survey. Those typically included boundary points or some aspect of an alignment or as-built survey on pipelines. The place I most recently interned at only required a sketch of each site, accompanied by physical pictures of the site, and left the rest of the story to the data generated in the instruments. Each company required a sketch, but the last one was the least comprehensive in its note keeping guidelines.

I am asking because I've come to understand that field notes are just as much legally binding as any other document or deliverable generated from an office, and I was curious to see what the consensus here may be. I've found a few general guidelines for depicting utilities and monuments and received pointers on hatching concrete or asphalt so that it's differentiable at a glance for draftsmen. All of this advice came during the aforementioned internship, though, and I still wondered about the best use of the left page in the book! The most I ever used the tabulated sheet for was recording level loops to something.

I take great pride in taking field notes, from the measured distances to supers on a construction site to the barking dog at the SW corner. Also I study other's notes in older field books in the office from the early 80's to 90's to 2000's, whatever is accessible to see how they took notes. Like others stated above, reading notes when the field book was the data collector will teach a field surveyor how to take notes to compliment the data collector. The data collector does just that, collects the field data, however if your computer crashes who is to say you really did turn 90å¡ and stake that box where it ought to be or that you found the fence in contention to be .30 E of found control? Just recently, without documentation and photos of where my nails landed on a particular footer, our little firm might be buying a new party wall between a garage and the main house on a 3 million dollar building, but standing our ground and providing notes and photos we received an apology.

I record heights and detailed descriptions for control points and monuments in written notes.

I do not write down heights and descriptions for every topo shot but I know Surveyors that do so. I find that distracting. I tend to make more mistakes. I find that focusing on the controller on topo shots is better and less mistake prone. I just write down the range of topo point numbers from a control point.

We have field notes back into the 1950s.

They come in handy for information and data that didn't make it onto the Record of Survey. They are also useful in conjunction with the old comp sheets for tracking down old blunders. I'm grounded right now due to an injured calf so my partner took my boss to the field. I wanted them to look for an iron pipe near a concrete monument set in 1965. I found the field notes with a bearing and distance tie. I gave that to them over the phone and they found the pipe. The 1965 R/S makes no mention of the pipe but Knute Nelson used it for a traverse point and called it O'Conner's 1/64 set in 1950. I also found a blunder in his comp.s such that the concrete monument is 2.7' west of where he intended to set it. This little corner of his map doesn't work mathematically and I was using his comps to try to figure out where I was going wrong but found it is his blunder.

Mark Mayer, post: 344659, member: 424 wrote: The main thing I like to see in notes these days is a running account of the instrument seup points and backsight points, with measure up information to confirm that entered in the data collector. Then an accounting of point numbers used at each occupation. Add detailed description of control and boundary monuments found or set if a simple field code is note fully descriptive. The raw data file fills in the rest.

Yes, the field book is the place to record monument descriptions, supplemented by a sketch if needed. While it may be a "FD1.2IRON.PIPE" in the data collector, in the field book it can be:

"75 - Found old 1/2 in. Galvanized Iron Pipe (6 in. Down) in native soil, approx. 0.55 ft. SW of Center of 4 x 4 Fence Post and with old Orange Plastic Ribbon attached" (in case the apparent age and color of flagging connects it in some meaningful way with other monuments on the boundary.

I put very little into a field book.

The phone camera and the data collector get heavy usage however.

I'm also lucky that being in a recording state, a proper set of survey notes are prepared showing all of the boundary calculations, fences, corner marks, etc and submitted to the Titles Office. These are what come out years down the track to assist future surveyors.

McCracker, post: 344665, member: 9299 wrote: however if your computer crashes who is to say you really did turn 90å¡ and stake that box where it ought to be or that you found the fence in contention to be .30 E of found control?

And if your office burns to the ground who is to say those things? Prudent practice dictates that important digital data be backed up offsite, so the "computer ate my homework" excuse doesn't hold water.

I started out before data collectors were in common use, and my early career notes reflect that. These days I mostly record HIs, monument and major control point descriptions, fence locations, manhole inverts and the occasional sketch, but the digital data are the meat and potatoes of my field record.

"What constitutes good field notes?"

My career began when field notes were as standard as our xyz & descriptor ascii files nowadays. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to look back over years of surveying notes and to utilize them. Some were pristine examples of classic Reinhardt Engineering fonts and some were hieroglyphic and rivaled doctor's notes in their mystery. Some had eloquent 7 color map-penciled graphics, some were stark with only the written word in 4H lead.

I believe all the visual attributes are extraneous to the question. Good field notes are notes that enable the reader to precisely retrace the footsteps of the author. I've seen a million ways that was accomplished, some pretty and some not. Beauty is in the eye of the one performing the retracement.

Great thread. Very informative!

I've found my field notes to be inconsistent with respect to thoroughness. On 'emergency' projects I tend to keep very basic notes; this has unfortunately come back to bite me on occasion where just a little more time documenting references to control points, etc. would have been most beneficial. On projects which are more planned in nature, I take more time to write it down and draw it up as needed.

Just yesterday we had some 'emergency' surveying to do just a few hundred feet from where we had another project six years ago. While we easily recovered the coordinate values and their datum basis for the old control points, it sure would have made work more productive if the field book had additional reference information!!! Just one example of the importance of THOROUGH field notes for the long term...

Today I am working from FB 341! I am blessed to have a partner that takes excellent notes, so good that I don't hesitate to share them with the client. I have only been in court three times in almost 40 years of this business but on the first visit the Judge asked to see my field notes. I reached into my briefcase and produced Book 110 and flipped to page 50. I remember it like it was yesterday. Enough said.

I take affidavits in a bound field book and nothing else. We use long detailed descriptions and the "note" feature provided by SurvCE. At the end of a project or after a great deal of data has been collected I have the field crew print the rw5 and .txt file containing the notes etc.. You can write a book if you want then print it for all to see in the font of your choice. If I get called to court and land an older judge, I will surely wish I had met with his image of what a good surveyor should do, ie. hand sketches. If I get called to court and the judge has an Ipad then I can produce an impressive document that will clearly show my attention to detail. Hand sketches are wonderful to behold but overly redundant since I draw everything as I locate it with F2F.

I can't predict what the opposing attorney will do to make me look bad. I watched a lawyer pound down a PLS I have deep respect for simply because he was over 70. The attorney knew the game and not so subtly convinced the jury that age=incompetence=negligence. From a strictly business standpoint, is it wise to keep any records older than 7 years?

Sometimes when trying to understand where your priorities should lie, it is a good to place actual values on objects. If you work in M&B state, how much would you pay for 30 years of your competitors field notes? How much money could you get if you tried to sell yours? My answer to these questions has led me learn how to accomplish the same task via modern means.

As stated above, have a double or triple backup of your digital files.

I include sketches, sometimes pretty simple, sometimes pretty detailed, depending upon the complexity of the area I'm trying to depict and the focus of the work at hand. When locating existing monuments, I include enough info that someone several weeks or maybe years from now driving onto or hiking into the scene should be able to look around and know they are in the right vicinity, and without any tools requiring batteries, be able to locate the monument by stumbling upon it or digging it up within a few minutes of arriving.

The standard these days seems to be a description like "Fd std county mon" written in the book and a code of IP or BC in the data collector. It seems that most wouldn't even write that much down if they hadn't been directed that writing a description of the point and noting the base station were the absolute minimum info to put in a book.

We typically run a 2-person crew. While the other person is taking the GPS shots, I'm usually busy writing a detailed description, whipping up a sketch, and adding a few rough (paced or pocket tape) dimensions to road centerlines, EPs, util poles, etc., and noting pipe size, cap type, noting the markings or sketching them, noting distance above or below surface and noting the surface type. If site photos are taken, I cross reference the photo number to the sketch or point description.

I also write down rod height, observation start & stop, and note specifics like if the DOP gets a bit high, or other issues that might interfere with data collection.

Earlier in my career, I wasn't always so diligent, but was fortunate to have bosses who regularly "encouraged" the field crews to keep neat and complete notes. Diligence comes from having had to follow notes (sometimes my own) back to a location (or in the office) and figure out what was found and what was done there.