On Ethnography, Chapter 4

Key Issues:

1) One of the purposes of taking fieldnotes is to ultimately transform them into a research proposal or grant application.
2) Fieldnotes should be turned into "conceptual memos that keep track of what the fieldworker learns from week to week."
3) Every ethnographer should "use columns for separating straight data from his comments and reflections as he records events."

4) Ethnographers should ask a "critical friend" to review and "comment on research questions, validity of the approach, feasibility of actually 'finding out'" what is happening.
Question: How is this going to work? Would this strategy not complicate the already existent problems pertaining to conducting ethnographic research?

5) Ethnographers should aim at moving beyond or breaking the barrier between formal and informal.
Question: How is this possible, especially when the ethnographer, no matter how she tries to remain neutral, may in one way or another fall prey to her cultural values, personality, upbringing and educational background and allow them to guide her in her selection and interpretation of details?