Fieldnotes are the basis on which ethnographies are constructed. They are the record from which every article and book about the research draws and against which every ethnographer tests developing ideas and theories. One thing that is common to all ethnography (or at least, every good ethnography) is that copious fieldnotes are made by the researcher throughout the whole time in the field. There are several key books that discuss the nature of what might be recorded and there are some reflexive accounts of how particular researchers have used their notes in the writing of articlesand books. But fieldnotes are usually viewed as being very personal and idiosyncratic in nature and our knowledge of the detail of what is recorded and how the record is used limited. This paper is part of a study of how ethnography is actually conducted. The wider study will eventually influence and provide real examples of practice for a methodological text on the process of doing ethnography. The study will involve interviewing six key ethnographers about the practices they engaged in while researching and writing one of their recent and significant ethnographies. The six ethnographies will be mainly drawn within the field of education broadly defined, but a minority will be in allied fields. They, and their ethnographies,will be named in the paper. This particular paper will focus on fieldnotes, while other related papers will focus on interviewing, access, relations in the field and similar topics. Each ethnographer will be interviewed in depth about their practices. They will be asked to provide samples of their fieldnotes and to describe how selected particular forms of fieldnotes and how they used them in the analysis and writing. A particular focus will be the extent to which textbook descriptions of what should be noted and the nature of such notes actually agrees with what these experienced ethnographers do in practice. How useful, for example, are the concepts of emic and etic? How many different forms of fieldnote do the researchers recognise? How critical and reflective are the fieldnotesmade? Do the researchers amplify their initial notes after the fact? If so, how and when do they do this? How do they select what to record and what to amplify? The research, although small scale, can be expected have considerable influence Simply because the sample will be chosen specifically to include those who are seen as being significant ethnographers. To understand more about how these people make and use fieldnotes can be expected to enhance future ethnographic studies.