Five post-graduates in search of a blog

Speedily put together at the SGSAH research blogging event

By Beinecke Flickr Laboratory (Commonplace Book, late 17th Century) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The question we collectively want to ask: why are we doing this? [laughs]

[long pause]

* To document and reflect on a practice!

* To connect with like-minded folk.

* To reach source material that isn’t available in the archives.

* Umm…

* To create an online portfolio through which to present myself and my work to the wider world.

Haven’t we forgotten something? -Wha? Exactly! – ‘…’?

Perhaps a question we should address first is what are we actually planning on doing?

* A blog, of course. I would like my blog to pull things together, but also to get stuff and dissect it – tear it to bits.

* Have you heard of the practice of using commonplace books? I think they were popular in the 18thC … It’s somewhere you would provide common entries in the same book. People wrote down and recorded medical and cooking recipes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulae, etc. You can read more about it on wikipedia. Do you remember autograph books!? People would make little personalised entries into your book, drawings, etc. It’s a similar kind of thing really.

By Beinecke Flickr Laboratory (Commonplace Book, late 17th Century) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

* Well, I like the idea of a blog as a sketch book… Through the perspective of your methodology to look at your research and your interests… I like the idea of my blog as a muse!

* I would like to design an online persona for myself. I want to be somebody on the internet! I plan on defining and classifying myself for all the world to see, though I have to say this is a bit of a scary thought.

* I like the idea of a looking-glass, or prism, through which my research can be refracted to the world. So there.

Shall we do some “whos”? Cause everyone in a way is trying to reach someone different, and there are any number of audiences to reach. Good idea.

Who are you going to write for?

* I struggle on how to address …. How do we even call “them”? … The ordinary folk? [i.e. non-academic audiences, of course, haha] The members of the general public… the Muggles [haha] Is that offensive? Are we really that sheltered?

* … artists, audiences, or maybe researchers. I don’t know, should I be more specific?

* Oral historians, special interest groups specific to certain regions, writers… and readers I suppose. Oh, and former lace workers as well as sound archivists! They would be important to reach.

* Nobody.

* My peers!

* My mum.

Okay okay try and stick to serious answers, please.

* Because I am drawing from lots of different fields, I feel really enthusiastic about them… but they might not be so interested in me. I would like to reach out. I especially want to talk to anyone interested in the WWI Centenary given the timeliness of the topic! And I would absolutely love it if people who had no academic affiliation would like to read my blog.

* Who am I?

This is getting ridiculous, I’m going for coffee.

[researchers leave the room for more coffee]

I think we should be careful for our whats and our whys. The what was the content, the why was the function. –but wouldn’t why be the aims? –No, we did what. Did we? –Oh, I don’t know. Whatever, we need an outcome.

So in writing these blogs, you would like to:

* Improve my writing, write on a regular basis. Make a practice of it.

* Promote and provoke interest in historical archives. Encourage the engagement with history outside of academic history.

* Create a market for myself!

* Start a conversation.

* Develop an online persona and make myself employable.

FYI: There were remarkably few Smiths in 18th C Wiltshire, but lots of Tugwells and Yearburys.

My first blog is going to be:

* Canceled

* Finished. [harhar]

* “Costume and conflict”: A key aim will be to show people that my subject is a useful historical tool that can be used and applied by all and any. I want to show the story-telling power of objects.

* I feel bad now. All of my thoughts were about developing my profile as a researcher. What am I going to do? I don’t know.

* I would like to resurrect my research centre’s blog and use it to promote activities on campus.

Can we touch on when a little bit?

* I think for me it will be an end-of-the-day task, after academic writing …

* Twice a month. I want the possibility to react spontaneously if something comes up though.

* When I feel compelled to. Then and only then.

* When my brain needs a bump start!

* Friday, 4pm

* Right now.

* One time I was out and about, stuck in a queue in fact, and as I was waiting there for what felt like forever I had the time to write a whole blog post in my head.

WHERE!>>!?

* On the train, in the quiet carriage.

* On the internet.

* On the move! I like to think about my writing when I walk.

* In the kitchen with the keyboard.

* Somewhere between my thoughts and their articulation.

* Somewhere no one will find it.

Let’s end with a few statements. Finish this sentence: “My first blog post [after this event] will be …”

* Shorter, braver, and more useful.

* Finished.

* Called “Why I like earwigging.”

* A response to something I have seen.

* Written in an impersonal voice.

Who am I when I blog? Who will I become?

[researchers walk off into the sunset]

[music plays, end credits]

By Beinecke Flickr Laboratory (Commonplace Book, late 17th Century) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Authors: Helen Foster / Andrew Gordon / Paul Moorhouse / Lucie Whitmore / Harry Wilson