MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Draft Three
MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Draft Three
Editorial history
19/08/12: CSG, created page
Contents
Suggested links
Transcription & Editorial Policy
MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Draft One
MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Draft Two
Introduction to the High Court of Admiralty
Draft Three
Draft of MarineLives Editorial Method/Directions for Transcribers
Revised August 18, 2012 (second revision on 18/08/12)
Charlene M. Eska
ceska@vt.edu
The aim of the transcribers is to create a semi-diplomatic edition of the HCA documents. As
such, transcribers will, for the most part, transcribe exactly what they see using the following
conventions.
Letter forms
Spelling is not standardized, so it is important to transcribe what you see and resist the urge
to ‘correct’ the spelling. Any letters that are written superscript should be lowered.
U/V, u,v Transcribe each of these letters as they appear in the documents. Do not make the
determination of whether the graph represents a vowel or a consonant.
i/j, I Transcribe each of these letters as they appear in the documents.
Y Although it looks like the letter ‘y’, it is really a form of þ ‘thorn’ and should be transcribed
as ‘th’. Common sense will tell you whether you are dealing with <y> or <þ>.
It is not uncommon for there to be a variety of marks above vowels. When they are not
indications of contractions or suspensions, transcribe them as they appear in the text. Individual
scribes have their own personal preferences/habits when it comes to these matters. Sometimes
marks are placed above or below consonants to distinguish them from other consonants, e.g.
lower case <c>. In this case, it is sufficient to write a note describing the scribe’s habit of
indicating lower case <c> rather than trying to reproduce the marks in the transcription.
Punctuation
Punctuation is different from what we are used to. Transcribe the marks as you see them. The
only exception to this will be the dash used to fill the ends of lines; ignore these marks. Do not
try to impose modern punctuation conventions.
Transcribe any dots surrounding numerals
Preserve the page layout as much as possible when you transcribe, including the placement of
signatures and line breaks within paragraphs.
Follow the foliation of the original documents.
Capitalization
Do not capitalize letters that are not written in capitals. Transcribe what you see. An index will
be created with standardized forms of names, places, ships, etc., and all spelling variants will be
indexed accordingly.
Abbreviations
& The ampersand represents the word ‘and’. Transcribe it as ‘and’ without putting it in italics. If
it is part of a Latin phrase, transcribe it as ‘et’.
Some words are commonly abbreviated, e.g. ‘arle’ for ‘article’. Put supplied letters in italics. See
webpage for a list of commonly abbreviated words.
Contractions and Suspensions
XXX All letters supplied by the transcribers should be in italics. This will be the case wherever
contractions and suspensions are expanded.
Tildas represent single or double ‘m’ or ‘n’. Be mindful of the different ways of
representing ‘per’, ‘pro’, ‘par’, ‘pre’, etc. along with ‘-con’.
[XXX] Any letters supplied should be enclosed in square brackets. This is sometimes the case
when a letter has been omitted by mistake. Use sparingly.
{…} Letters lost due to staining, damage, etc. Give an indication, if possible, of how many
letters are lost and if any letter forms are even partially visible.
--XXXXXX-- Use the strikethrough function to indicate text deleted in the documents. Transcribe as
much as you can see.
˹ XXX ˺ Text written between the lines or in the margins. If written in the margins, indicate in a
footnote whether the text is marg. sup., marg. inf., marg. dext., or marg. sin.
Colin's comments on Draft Three
Charlene's gloss on Draft Three
2012-08-20 19:00:15 nbsp I mentioned this to Colin the other day and he told me Jill had already written a model transcription for Challenge 3. However I am still wondering how we would show in the transcription a table like that seen in that excerpt? I'm not sure how, using scripto, we would be able to demonstrate this, other than putting spaces and trying to line up each line to make it look like a table? --Users/williamtullett
2012-08-22 04:57:26 nbsp William: Charlene, Giovanni and I are working on a set of clarifications of Draft Three to handle some of the rarer, but neverthless important, layout aspects of HCA manuscripts. This includes thinking how efficiently to represent tables. We also need to think through how tables will be handled in semantic markup. Presumably they will need to be coded to show that the numbers represent pounds, shillings and pence, and the line items to the left are line items --Users/ColinGreenstreet
