320 Years of History
Gold Member
- Thread starter
- #141
... No need to "fully develop" with examples and references to other works as if submitting an assignment to a lit professor. If needed such development will happen through the discussion format of the message board.
Red:
I certainly agree there's no express need to do so.
By the same token, I think if one has something one thinks is worth saying, presenting one's thoughts cohesively and completely in one post is the most effective and efficient way of doing so, certainly more so than having them spread in dribs and drams over scores of posts. The latter approach makes it nigh impossible for readers to keep focused on the central themes of one's remarks, and that ultimately leads to a largely incoherent discussion.
Many of my very long posts discuss and link to the background information readers need to understand to fully engage in the discussion with approximately the same degree of comprehension a given post aims to. Given the "open to all" nature of this forum, I provide that information to facilitate making the post/topic accessible to folks who may not, prior to reading the post and linked content, have the experience/training participate at that level of comprehension.
Obviously, folks who truly are well informed/schooled on, say, economic theory and analysis, don't need to read most of a long post on that topic; they can scan the post and quickly pick up the non-didactic parts of it and discuss them while applying the same principles and ideas that I included in the post for the benefit of folks who don't "come to the table" already knowing that stuff.
Does that mean I'm including everyone in target audience for the post/discussion? No, it merely means I'm not in an active sense trying to exclude folks who may care to follow the conversation between myself and the people who are in the target audience.
As for the references, the main reason I put them in is to show a theme or idea I note is not merely a lightly arrived at opinion, or that it's not an opinion at all.