Online Training Activities

Online Training Activities

Editorial history.

Created by JW 28/08/12

When you have completed these tasks you will need to get used to using the Transcription and Editorial policy and Transcript, the program we will be using in the project. Whilst this may appear daunting at first glance, the ethos of the project is collaborative and therefore we hope that by sharing our problems and solutions we will all be more productive.

Colin has created a section on Introduction to the High Court Admiralty and if you have not already looked at it, I would suggest you do that now. You do not need to have ago at transcribing the documents on there as some of them are quite difficult, but the notes will give you an idea of what the material we will be transcribing is about. If you have time to do a little more reading i would suggest reading [1]. If you have a lot of spare time Colin has provided a bibliography for you to work through.

The documents that we will be transcribing are the statements from witnesses and as such many of them do tend to follow a pattern, with similar phrases appearing at the beginning and end of paragraphs. This should help to make our task easier when we get to grips with the writing. There are often references to a wide range of european cities and countries and some of the mariners names are dutch in origin.

==Task 1      Getting Started==

Getting Started
To get started go to look at Challenge 2 and Challenge 4 you might want to print them off. Rather than transcribing the whole document see what words you can pick out how are they different to the way we would write them today. Look at how the letters are formed, when consonants are doubled, which letters that we would use today have been substituted by other letters? You may want to check your own ideas with the model transcription provided. Here is a summary of what you may have found together with a sample alphabet from the period Introduction to Palaeography

==Task 2       Abbreviations==

Abbreviations
In addition to the spelling and the way letters are formed you will also find that some words are abbreviated here are some examples

 Allon – abbreviation for allegation
 Arle – abbreviation of article
 Arlate - "onely one of the fowre English ships arlate" (HCA 13/19)
 Depo:t - ("deponit et dictit" (HCA 13/64 f.23r)
 psons - persons,  par & per are often abbreviated to p e.g. pishes instead of parishes

When transcribing abbreviated words we want you to put the letters that have been missed out in brackets e.g. p[er]sons.

Here is an example of a text with an abbreviation can you transcribe it? What is the word that has been abbreviated? Very clear cursive hand. When you have transcribed it check your answer with the model answer provided.

==Task 2b)==

Here is another example of an extract with an abbreviated word transcribe it and then check your answer against the model transcription.

Model Transcription for extract of p1110094

You will find more examples of abbreviations in the dictionary provided abbreviations

==Task 3       Tricky letters and uses==

Tricky letters and uses
As you will have noticed many letters were formed differently here are some examples of some of the more difficult ones to work out.

H or h

Example 3b

You will have noticed from the above example that C is also a tricky letter (in my view possibly the trickiest). Here are three examples of the letter C all formed differently.

county

Capt mills was comannder

Example 3c

R or r can also trip you up to start with.

Examples of the letter r

Examples of the letter r in manuscripts

Example 3d

The letters o, a and e can be difficult to distinguish, again here are some examples from the text.

Examples of e, O and a

Task 3e Transcribing a longer section

Transcribe the following section of manuscript This is a longer section that includes the above examples, you may also find that a colon is used to replace letters occasionally. The section includes the names of the following ships.
Golden Starr, Morning Starr, Advantage frigot, Water hound Mayflower.
The word commonwealth is also used.

You may need to look back at some of the previous sections to help you transcribe it.

Section one

Here is the model answer "Section 1 model answer" - what mark out of 10 would you give yourself?

Task 4 Latin

There may be some latin phrases used in some documents. Here is an example of a paragraph with a latin phrase at the beginning and end of the paragraph, can you transcribe the paragraph? Here are some other common latin phrases that you might come across

Sample Three: colons, end of paragraph markings Check your transcription with the model answer.

Task 5 Money and measurements

The currency used is that of Pre decimalisation pounds, shillings and pence, money is often mentioned in connection with the wages of the sailors. An example is Challenge 3

There is a wide variety of measurements used in connection with cargo. This extract demonstrates how money might be displayed within a document and gives some measurements used. Weights and measures

==FQA==
1. Should I correct the spellings in documents where it is spelt differently to the way would spell it today?  No, do not correct spellings transcribe the words as they are spelt in the manuscript, even if that is different within the same document e.g. said may be spelt sayd or said.

2. What should I do about punctuation? They did not punctuate documents in the way we do today, so do not add in full stops or commas if you think they are missing.  But do transcribe any dots or dashes as they appear in the manuscript.