On the use of notes and note-taking in social science: A study of private writing

This paper has two main goals: to make an exploratory study of the use of notes and note-taking in social science, with a special emphasis on sociology, and to suggest a few ways in which this practice can be improved. By note-taking is here meant the writing of notes to observe, to remember, and to work and think with. It is suggested that most forms of note-taking represent a kind of private writing, in the sense that the notes are written exclusively for the writer and not for other people to read as in public writing. The quality of being private changes the structure as well as the content of the note which is often hard to understand for others. The approach in the paper is historical as well as material. Early forms of note-taking by social scientists are discussed, and also its use today in such areas as fieldwork, participant observation and qualitative sociology. The paper concludes with a discussion of a few ways in which the note-taking practices in social science can be improved.