Quick questions on Process documentation and the logbook: HSC Drama practical

The logbook (sometimes called the "process diary", the "design journal" or the "rehearsal log", depending on the Individual Project option) is a continuous record of the student's work across Year 12. It is not a polished finished document; it is a working record that grows week by week.

Research. Books read, articles read, plays read or watched, productions attended, interviews conducted, sources consulted. Each entry dated and cited. Quoting from sources is fine if cited.

Fake a logbook at the end of the year. Markers can see this. A logbook compiled in October to look like a year's work reads differently from one kept across the year. Specific dates, specific decisions, specific dead ends are hard to invent retrospectively.

Date. When the entry was made.

Hand-written. A physical notebook or scrapbook. Sketches, photographs and printed material can be glued in. This is the traditional form.

For the Individual Project, the logbook is part of the submitted material. NESA's marking criteria for the Individual Project include the process documentation. The logbook is not separately scored, but it informs the marker's assessment of the substance of the work behind the final product.

Last-minute compilation. Trying to invent a year's logbook in a fortnight. The chronology, the dead ends and the dated decisions cannot be faked credibly.

A research entry: "Read Currency Press introduction to The 7 Stages of Grieving (Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman, 1996 edition). Enoch describes the play's structure as 'a series of small ceremonies'. Particularly interested in the use of the suitcase as recurring object. Plan to read the Belvoir programme notes from the 1996 production next."

When the student needs to return to a decision made months earlier, the logbook records what was decided and why.

The Individual Project submission to NESA includes the logbook. Markers read it for evidence of substantial process.

The act of writing about the work helps the student think about the work. Recording what is not yet working surfaces problems early.

Books read, articles read, plays read or watched, productions attended, interviews conducted, sources consulted. Each entry dated and cited. Quoting from sources is fine if cited.

Choices made and the reasoning behind them. "Decided to cut the second monologue because it duplicates the first." "Chose a 1955 setting because it places the play in the original production's moment."

Approaches that did not work. "Tried using direct address throughout; abandoned because it broke the play's emotional commitment." "Built a model with a revolve; abandoned because the school's stage cannot accommodate one."

Reworkings of material. What changed, why, how. Earlier and later drafts kept side by side.