Page 288 - Manual for Activities directed at the Underwater Cultural Heritage

- Make sure that chapters, paragraphs, figures, photos, and specialist reports are adequately cross-referenced. Readers should be able to find their way through the report without difficulty.
- Draw attention to potential areas of future study that could not be fully explored in the context of the agreed project design.
- Standardize abbreviations and carefully choose expressions to convey subtleties of meaning.
For scientific reports, peer reviewing is recommended, to ensure state-of-the-art levels of quality.
Responsibility
Reporting must be carried out by a team of researchers composed of specialists representing various branches of science. It is important to ensure collaboration and exchange. The reporting must be performed by those who were directly involved in the collection of data. The final responsibility lies with the research director. It is a substantial responsibility. The history of archaeology has seen many instances of directors who deferred reporting until much more could be known, after many more years of excavation, with the aim of then writing the ultimate, authoritative publication. Unfortunately also, many died before this ever happened. Managing projects of limited scope to their completion has therefore become the norm. Follow-up projects can be planned later, but only after completion of earlier reports. It is therefore suggested that timely completion and submission of research reports should be a condition for future appointments as research director of a project.
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Reporting