Your First Ninety Days in Language Documentation
What Field Methods Classes Don't Teach You

About this book:

Your graduate seminars taught you phonology, syntax, and software workflows—but they didn't prepare you for the silence after the truck engine cuts out, the elder who needs two weeks of shared meals before speaking into a microphone, or the funeral that pauses your elicitation schedule for a week. *Your First Ninety Days in Language Documentation* is the field manual that fills the gap between academic theory and the messy, human reality of community-based work. Drawing on hard-won experience, it guides you through the crucial first quarter-year: navigating gatekeepers and local politics, building digital workflows that survive humidity and power outages, structuring fair compensation without distorting economies, and producing tangible community returns long before a grammar is published.

Beyond logistics, this book confronts the internal terrain no one discusses in methods classes: the imposter syndrome that hits when your carefully planned wordlists collapse in real conversation, the secondary trauma of bearing witness to language loss, the exhaustion that turns small setbacks into crises. It offers concrete strategies for working respectfully with elders and semi-speakers, staying neutral amid factional tensions, and aligning your research goals with community-driven priorities. You'll learn why metadata is "a love letter to the future," how to exit ethically when your season ends, and how to sustain relationships—and the work—long after you've packed your Pelican cases.

Treat this not as a checklist for data extraction, but as an apprenticeship in reciprocity. The quality of your documentation will always reflect the quality of your relationships. Whether you're a PhD student preparing for your first season or a seasoned researcher seeking to decolonize your practice, this guide will help you move beyond extractive research into collaborative endeavor—where clean audio files matter, but trust, humility, and mutual benefit matter more.