MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Draft One
MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Draft One
Editorial history
17/08/12: CSG, created page
Contents
Suggested links
Transcription & Editorial Policy
MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Draft Two
MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Draft Three
Introduction to the High Court of Admiralty
Draft One
Draft One: MarineLives Editorial Method/Directions for Transcribers
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>. The documents
I have looked at so far write out the sequence <th>, but this graph is common during this time
period.
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.
XXX 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.
Correspondence with Dr Elaine Murphy (regarding Draft Zero)
Email to Dr Eska and Colin Greenstret
Date: August 12th 2012
"Hi Colin and Charlene, I like these guidelines, they are very straightforward and should produce a clear and sensible transcription
I especially like the idea of a common words list, it gives people a good starting point if they are unsure about something, especially for some of the more common maritime or legal terms they might come across)
My one slight concern, and this may not be relevant is about the use of < > to indicate text deleted in the document.
It might be easier and safer to use the strikethrough function in word, putting things into < > can have major repercussions when you go to put things online; convert to TEI/xml etc. This became problematic with the 1641 Depositions (I can send you examples, if you want)
The 1641 Depositions converntions can be found here if you want a look
http://1641.tcd.ie/using-transcription.php
The major mistake about these (to my mind), was that we didn't produce a line by line transcription. For various reasons it was decided to let the text run on within each paragraph."
NOTE: Dr Murphy's comments were taken onboard and incorporated into a revised draft, which has now been labelled DRAFT ONE
Issues discussed in Eska/Greenstreet TC, 16/08/12
- Diplomatic transcription = an exact transcription (e.g. superscripts and subscripts, ampersands; line markings; exact positionings on page; all reproduced in transcription as precisely as possible) ADVANTAGE: don't lose "contact" with the manuscript; DISADVANTAGE: Creates significant problems when doing semantic markup and considerable workload for those marking up the text
- Semi-diplomatic transcription = compromise, which preserves much of the manuscript, but eliminates superscripts and subscripts, ampersands, and some other detail from the trasncription
Questions to put to Dr Stuart Dunn and Giovanni Colavizza
1. Do different technological solutions to our semantic markup needs have differing degrees of automation and workload for those marking up the text, if we go for a transcription and editorial policy which seeks to preserve a high level of manuscript detail (e.g. superscripts)?
2. What are the capabilities of different technological solutions to (a) capturing our transcriptions (b) fulfilling our semantic markup needs in terms of ability and ease and workload to handle
- Horizontal and vertical lines of various sorts (See Horizontal and vertical lines)
- Tables of accounts (See Money & specie)
- e.g. bills of lading; schedules of mariners' wages; list of charges; pages from voyage account
- Such tables are infrequent (e.g. perhaps once every twenty to forty pages, so perhaps there will be perhaps 25 to 50 pages with such tables (and semantic mark up need) in a volume of 1000 pages
- Pounds, shillings and pence (See Money & specie)
- Abbreviations for quantities (See Abbreviations)
- Recording where text and symbols are located on a manuscript page
- e.g. in LH or RH margin; above or below main text body; in columns; in unusual text blocks, such as text at 90 degrees to main text
- Coding text blocks and symbols as being of a particular category
- e.g. Case summary; Deponent's details; Main deposition; Signature; Schedule
