The “So-What?” Question

Whenever I’m writing an essay and I have an idea that I want to include, I like to ask myself a question. I call it the ‘so-what test’, and it consists of asking this question as many times as necessary in order to elucidate why what I’m saying is significant. This text is written in couplets. — So what? — Well, it’s interesting. — So what? — Well, it begs the question of how common this was for fourteenth-century didactic literature. — So what? — This could give us an insight into how form complemented content in the literature of this period. And so on.

All of which brings me to the question that’s been hanging over this corner of the Internet ever since I registered the domain name: ce blog, eh bien quoi alors? What’s this website for?

Well, it’s certainly not for somewhat-self-aggrandising introductions: I’ve already done plenty of that on my ‘About’ page (get your cringing muscles ready before clicking on that one, folks), where I also explain what’s behind the title ‘Anglo-Normantics’. Rather, I like to think of this site as a repository for what will be, as the translated title to the twentieth-century French author George Perec’s anthology put it, ‘thoughts of sorts’. I’m not sure how easy, possible, or even desirable it would be to put a label on the content that I will produce here, but if I had to, it would probably say something like ‘a medieval PhD blog that stretches itself too thin and tries to cover too much’.

A more pertinent question: who is the website for? Is it for medievalists, PhD or otherwise? Is it for friends and family, some of whom might be interested in what little Edward is up to? Is it for the search engines, as part of my attempt to overtake the somewhat more famous Edward Mills in Google rankings? Well, the answer I’d like to offer is ‘yes’ to all of them. (Well, possibly not that last one.) As I write this, I’m hoping to write something as close to a general-purpose PhD blog as possible, with posts ranging from somewhat-technical discussions of medieval didactic literature to down-to-earth discussions of daily dealings in doctoral dissertations. Of course, this means that every post will interest some groups more than others, and that my writing style will vary wildly between relatively technical and, y’know, irritatingly informal. One day, I might even try to do both at the same time.

A couple of days ago, I came across an academic writing advisor whose own blog describes the product of academic research as ‘creative non-fiction’. If all goes to plan, this blog will be very much in that mould, chronicling my first steps into the murky waters of research. It’d be a joy and a privilege to have you along for the ride.