the general layout of a dot book contains the "longitudes" and "latitudes" of an american football field. however, a cartesian coordinate system (x/y) is rarely used, rather an alternative system of plotting players as dots on a grid and some jargon is used. for instance, a player may write: "3 inside 45r and 5 in front bh." this would mean that the player is 3 steps inside (towards the 50 yard line) from the 45th yard line from the right side (facing the press box) and is five steps in front of the back hash (see field and players of american football for an explanation of terms).