I was asked about writing documentation for competition. I'm
not going to talk at all about the research which IS your documentation
- that's another question entirely, which of course you did before
you started to make your object (ahem).
Here's my approach to writing the documentation down. This method
has worked well for me and for many others I have shown it to.
First step is to say what it is that the judge/audience is looking at. An example:
"Trousers made of cotton twill, dyed with indigo, featuring flat felled seams and overstitching in gold. Rivets reinforce the comers, button fastenings at front flap."
Simple, direct, what it's made of and how it's made. No more than two or three sentences.
Next, go through the process of how you made the object. Start at the beginning, such as your research process, if you like-.
"I found this book and then I found this journal article listed in the bibliography and then I found the journal article and it said that Nestle Chocolate Almond bars have been found in graves from Spain in 1593, including a period recipe sitting right along side of it. Then I went to the local dairy and got unpasteurized milk and to the gourmet Mexican food shop for unsweetened chocolate and then I approximated the right kind of pan (here's a picture of the pan found in the grave) and then I melted the chocolate... "
Keep in mind the following points:
1) FOOTNOTE EVERYTHING. If you don't know how to do write footnotes or a bibliography, go to your local library and ask the librarian for help (they don't bite).
2) If you decide not to use a period technique or supply (fabric, whatever), EXPLAIN WHY YOU DIDN'TUSE IT (we call this anti-documentation). For instance, if you are a college student and you cant afford gold leaf on your scroll work, explain that you are a poor college student who cant afford gold leaf. BUT DON'T STOP THERE! Make sure that you write down the process by which they would have used the gold leaf in period ("if I had used gold leaf, this is what I would have had to do to it to make it work") - I want to know that you understand the difference between period and modern and that you are making the choice NOT to use the period method/item for a sound reason, not just "I didn't feel like trying to figure it out." And, if you tell me that you're not doing it because you can't afford it, and I know that there's a way to do it cheaply (or I offer to help pay for the materials for you - I've done it before!), you're going to lose points. I have also seen people say, "I know that in period it would be this way, but I changed it because I thought it looked prettier this entirely modern way' - big no-no. I want to see that you have developed a medieval aesthetic - you are looking at your piece with a medieval eye (as much as we can approximate such a thing), not a modern eye. You might also say that you have tried to make it in a period way and learned that the outcome is like X, so now you regularly substitute the modem equivalent of X because you know from your own experience that it is similar in the following ways (and point out the ways).
If you need to show pictures from one of your sources, photocopy the picture and include it with the documentation (making sure to footnote the original source) - DO NOT DRAG THE BOOK ALONG TO THE COMPETITION. I tend to collect everything I have found on a particular subject and put it all into a single 3-ring binder. If there are sections of a book I own that I use for that subject, I photocopy that and put it in the binder. That way, I can always grab the binder and take it along with me or take it down to show to someone, without trying to find the original book in the black hole which is my house (I live with a librarian - I can't find anything! Why doesn't he organize the books by color and shape like normal people???).
Finally, spend some time talking about how the piece ended up. Were you happy with the results? Was it a complete failure? What did you learn by doing it? This is where you can make up for a lot of mistakes - show us that you understand enough about the subject to know where you went wrong. You might also talk about what you're going to do with the object now that you're done.
Then list all your footnotes (if you haven't put them at the bottom of the pages)and add your bibliography. You can annotate it (that means writing comments about the source, i.e. "I know that this source is very old and unreliable but there's a painting reproduced on page 5 which has been very helpful", or "This journal article is in German but the photos are still worth looking at") or not, but be sure to get all of the important information. Hopefully your bibliography is well rounded (in other words, not just one coffee table style book that you found in your grandmothers attic) - remember in high school when they made you have at least three books and five magazine articles? Many people keep running bibliographies on the subjects they are interested in on their computers - that way you don't have to keep looking up the source to get the information for each individual project/piece.
KEEP A COPY OF THE DOCUMENTATION FOR YOUR RECORDS! You might not get the documentation back at the end of the night. You can also bring along extra copies in case anybody is interested in your work. I found that attaching the documentation to the actual piece was important [at competitions] - sometimes the written documentation can get separated from the piece itself.
Of course, none of this is of any importance at all IF THE JUDGES WON'T READ THE DOCUMENTATION!!! (This is a serious hint to all judges out there). I can't tell you how many times judges have made comments about my work in competitions when the answers to their questions were right in front of them. That's the bad news. The good news is that if you are careful enough to write up your documentation very thoroughly, you only have to edit a sentence or two in order to send it to "Tournaments Illuminated".
Are you completely overwhelmed? Don't be - it's not as hard as you think. It's just a logical way of writing down what you know.
Good luck,
Baroness Mairi ni Raghaillaigh (aka Patrikia Maria Agrissa Sgourina,
OL, mka Linda M. Blowney)
February, 1999 (updated June 2001 and April 2002)