Bret Devereaux

Between a burst of traffic on my Sparta series and finishing up the EU4 analysis, I'm seeing in the comments the same complaint: that I insist on stressing certain true things again and again at each reference (e.g. 'slavery is unpleasant and bad' or 'the agoge was abusive') 1/14

The short response to this is, of course, "my house, my rules" but I write things that way for a reason, so let me explain. One thing you learn very quickly when teaching is that student attention varies a lot - they tune in and out at unpredictable times. 2/14

That also goes also for reading. Some paragraphs are read closely. Some are skimmed. Some are skipped. You have little control over which ones. So if there is some important qualifier that you need to be in mind each time something comes up, you need to repeat it. 3/14

Sure, in an academic article, or a carefully edited short piece for a traditional publication, you can get away with saying something once and then assuming the reader will carry that with them. Because there are you are *arguing* a single key point, not teaching a topic. 4/14

But what I am doing with the blog is fundamentally teaching - I don't assume a lot of background knowledge or training. Establishing general familiarity with the facts is at least as important as presenting a specific interpretation (= argument) about them. 5/14

And readers don't consume a 7,000 word blog post the way they consume a 1200 word article or a peer reviewed piece of scholarship. They get distracted, fade in and out, bookmark it to pick it up later or skip posts in a series. Like teaching. 6/14

Consequently, I can't just leave some small note at the beginning that reads "Of course we all know slavery was very bad and its conditions were very harsh and so we don't need to bring that up ever again" and then never mention that on the blog when the topic comes up. 7/14