Friday 12 September 2008

analytics

One blog I read regularly has worked out that by mentioning "panties", she will get all sorts of hits from people who type that word into a search engine. I was thinking about this last night when I considered writing here about the section of my dissertation that I'm about to send off to my supervisor. The only trouble is that, if I do so, I may win hits from people interested in "circumcision" or "foreskin", rather than in Middle English accounts of Christ's circumcision!

It's been a fun topic to work on, partly because it is a complete conversation-stopper: no one has a response for "Christ's circumcision" when they pose the question "what are you working on at the moment?" However, I've reached my usual wobbly pre-submission moment. My piece is far too quotation-heavy right now. I need to cut out great swathes of Middle English before forcing my supervisor to read it. I tend always to get too thrilled by the texts and forget to comment myself on what they are doing. So I've a 20 page draft to read through and work through.

And then I can move on to the magi.

1 comment:

TLC Tugger said...

It must be tough as a historian working on your topic. What first-hand accounts could there possibly be? Who recorded them?