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For my first micro-project, I posted a blog entry on philolog.org philolog.org about a topic relating directly to my master's thesis which is about the historicity of the speeches in Ammianus Marcellinus' history. The blog post (see below) is about one of these speeches, at the (near) mutiny of Julian's men in Persia after the seige of Pirisabora in A.D. 363 (Ammianus Marcellinus, 23.3.1-3). When I wrote the blog entry, I had not yet started actually writing the thesis--all I had was piles of notecards and a half-heartedly arranged outline which I had been procrastinating on finishing (and starting the actual writing).
In a lot of ways, writing this entry helped me: first and foremost, it got me actually writing, instead of just shuffling notecards around; since I knew it would be semi-published, I had to tailor it a wider audience who would not necessarily be familiar with Julian or Ammianus; I also knew that since it would be up for public viewing, it had to be carefully thought--and I did in fact catch a major mistake in my own chronology while I was doing this. It also forced me to be as concise as possible, knowing that most people don't want to read extensive articles on a computer screen--I ended up cutting a lot out, and when I went back to convert this to a chapter of my thesis, I decided that most of it should stay out. Once I had this up, it ws certainly a lot easier to start really writing my thesis, since the ball was already rolling--it was felt more like I was just continuing rather than starting with a blank canvas. Finally, I ended up doing some major reorganization of the order of topics I discussed in this section of my thesis--not the type of change I would normally make once I start writing, but I think that it helped significantly.
[include:http://traumwerk.stanford.edu/philolog/2007/03/julians_spin_doctor_ammianus_m.html]
Posted at May 15/2007 09:55PM:
chris witmore: Excellent work here Adam. I appreciate your reflection on the effectiveness of the blog entry. Weird that the wiki drops the Greek font...