My learned friend from Annapolis apparently missed my point.  There
is absolutely no need to "dumb down" a report in order to make it
readable for the educated non-specialist reader.  I must strongly
disagree with the statement:


>These reports must contain the nitty gritty details of
>methods, findings, and analyses, including discussions of various
>multi-variate statistical techniques where appropriate. This is not the
>stuff of public writing.

In a well-designed report, the details will be explained for the
non-specialist, and the drudgery of massive tabular parts will be
ameliorated with creative typography. Does my friend think that we
are the only people who use "multi-variate statistical techniques" in
our reports? Of course not.  There is nothing in an archaeological
report that can't be understood by a physician, or a lawyer, or a
high-school teacher, if it is presented understandably.

So-called "popular" or, more correctly, "dumbed down" publications do
not meet the needs of a large potential audience capable of, and
willing to, "plow through" the technical overburden required in CRM.
In fact, they might even delight in all the detail.

More important is the fact that this audience might be our most
effective political supporters.  There is a vast non-specialist, but
educated, audience out there who are interested in archaeology and
history. We are not writing for them. Heck, we aren't even writing
for ourselves.

A well-written and well-presented technical report should be just as
readable by a chemist or an engineer as it is for archaeologists. But
right now, most of our reports are so opaque that they are
inaccessible even for professional researchers in very closely
related fields, such as local history, genealogy, and specialist
collecting.  Archaeology is not an island; it is part of the
community, and all archaeological reports should be written for the
use of the larger community.
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