I thought this would be a good as time as any to reflect on how this experiment is going (see the “What’s the purpose of this blog?” post). I’m quite sanguine, for the most part. Basically, I’m doing exploratory research on the phenomenon of recitation, but instead of amassing jottings and comments on paper or on a computer file, I’ve been recording the research on this blog. One advantage of doing this on a blog is that it compels one to further explore, process and compose a useful synopsis and comment on the material, rather than just collect a mass of citations and quotations, the significance of which might be forgotten in the process of collecting evidence.

A second advantage is that, with tools like Categories and Tags and hyperlinking, you can manipulate and access your research materials in ways not possible in more traditional formats. Although, in a sense, a blog can be viewed as a variation on the most traditional of research tools: the index-card system, where research is written down on index cards and then filed according to whatever cataloging system the researcher has devised. The blog, unlike the index-card mode of research, is much easier to use and can deal with unforeseen changes, additions, revisions in research trajectories, in a way that would be a nightmare if one were using the index-card system. (Blog posts can also be revised, supplemented, new tags and categories added, without wielding a big eraser or having to cram some new information along the side of an index card in vision-cripppling minuscule script.) Which leads me to ponder: How many scholars became the prisoners of, because of the effort they put into, their indexing-card systems, thereby limiting their intellectual mobility because of a preconceived system they had devised for structuring their data?

Another, and more exciting advantage to my mind, is that by using a publicly-accessible blog to record one’s research, you can make connections with other scholars and with people that you would not otherwise normally do in academia. Would my attention have been brought to Ruby of Freehold 2’s post on recitation if I had not be a part of a public forum like WordPress? I don’t think so. It’s quite interesting to see how users visit one’s blog from a multiplicity of search vectors: the “Twenty little froggies…” poem seems inexplicably popular. I think this interconnectivity makes doing research a much more open-ended process: you never know what kind of interesting lead you might be presented with as a part of an online network.

And, for scholars, the benefit of using blogs is that their research becomes a product in and of itself, which is usable by others. Of course, if scholars want to keep their research to themselves for a period of time (i.e. until they have professionally benefited from it), this does not prevent them from using a blog, since they can make it password protected and accessible only to themselves.

The only thing lacking so far is paper proposals for my NAVSA panel! But of course no-one submits proposals until a few days before the deadline. I also hope to have some collaborators on this blog.

Most of my posts so far have been based on material I had collected before starting this blog (and most of it you’ll noticed is web-based). In the next few posts, I intended to examine some recently scholarship that is concerned with recitation.

This blog is an experiment. Can a blog be an effective tool for recording, retrieving and sharing research? Can it be a way for conference panel members (see ‘About’) and others to communicate — exchange ideas, give feedback, keep informed about the development of the work of members? And can a blog be the means by which the ‘ephemeral’ work done in the process of research and participating in conferences is made into a useful, lasting (and evolving?) resource for others? I envision a blog like this being a repository that makes accessible valuable (and usually unpublished) work even after the original creators have finished with it. What use are a collection of research notes gathering dust on a high shelf or sealed away in a computer file on a hard drive?