That is not to say that as you write more formally you won't go back and start sorting and thinking again you undoubtedly will. But at some stage more of your effort has to go into writing up than analysis, just as at some stage you have to stop trying to collect more data and think about what you are going to do with it all. The spiral has a beginning and an end. The first point I would like to make then about ethnographic writing is that, just as in survey research you do not present an entire database and correlations of every variable with every other, you should not try to communicate everything from your ethnography. You are ready to write when you have looked at your data and thought about all you know, and have decided on a story to tell, a thesis to present, or an argument to make (Berg 2004). If you have not reached this point, you should go back to the beginning and ask yourself what you wanted to know. What was your intellectual puzzle or topic o set of guiding questions? What were your foreshadowed problems (Malinowski 1922)? Did you begin by stating you would test a theory, develop a theory, challenge stereotypes, explain themes, aid understanding? You are not ready to write up if you have not thought about your data and how to make sense of it all in the light of your initial problems. Try to bear these few points in mind a you prepare your written work Start by writing up the things you are sure about A title (even just a working one) helps the writing move along It means you have decided what you are writing about! Decide, where possible and at each stage, when you are describing and when you are explaining