Scratch notes, also known as jots or jottings, are short notes written by a researcher, during observations and/or fieldwork, or shortly thereafter. Scratch notes are an important tool in conducting participant observation in qualitative research. Scratch notes employ various written forms such as shorthand, diagrams, phrases, words, images, and even doodles. This writing tool provides a visual mental marker that allows the researcher to recall distinct elements from their observation. These elements include but are not limited to, sensory details, emotions, behaviors, and interactions, which can add to or describe the observation or setting. The researcher later incorporates the scratch notes into their field notes. This entry explains how scratch notes are an essential tool in qualitative research which permits the researcher to design and record detailed field notes.

Fiction as method in qualitative research developed from the larger genre of arts‐based research. Fiction as method exists within a continuum of arts‐based methods ranging from those scholars who take aesthetic license with their work but primarily base their writing on accounts that are close to the experience; to scholars who fictionalize portions of a narrative ethnography (alter existing elements of a narrative for the purpose of providing anonymity to study participants or achieving literary aims); to scholars who write fictional accounts which are rooted in the writer's imagination in order to make a specific claim or point.