What makes a missionary journal a good historical source

In my chosen hobby, good sources are a valuable treasure. In that regard I have been fortunate. While researching Tennessee LDS history, I have run across several really good missionary journals. But I have also run across several abysmal ones. They have been so bad, that I have reflected on my missionary journal and just how much better I could have made it. I wish I had been given some examples of what good journal writing was before I ever started my mission. I can't go back and do it over. Anything I write today would be a recollection, not a journal. It isn't the same.

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