MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Version 6 Current Policy
MarineLives Transcription & Editorial Policy: Version 6 Current Policy
This is current policy and should be applied to all transcriptions from June 1st, 2014
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.
Contents
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.
EXAMPLES:
"./."
":/:"
":-"
Transcribe any dots surrounding numerals.
EXAMPLE:
".1.", ".6th."
Preserve the page layout as much as possible when you transcribe, including the placement of signatures and line breaks within paragraphs. see http://marinelives.wikispot.org/Layout_of_page
Capitalization
Do not capitalize letters that are not written in capitals. Transcribe what you see.
Be particularly careful that you do not capitalise the names of people, places, and ships if they are not capitalised in the original.
Be particularly observant of the differences between lower and upper case "c/C" and "h/H"
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. Below is a list of commonly abbreviated and contracted words.
Letters supplied by transcriber
Letters lost due to manuscript staining or damage
Spacing
Only ever leave one space after a full stop, comma, semi-colon, or any form of punctuation, no matter how much space the clerk left.
Line breaks
Line breaks in the original manuscript should be shown using a carriage return
Words which are split over lines and which are marked so by the clerk should be shown with "=" (which is the typical symbol used by clerks to indicate such an event)
EXAMPLE:
Thomas Sharpe of the parish of Saint Stephen Coleman=
Street London merchant Late Purser of the sayd shipp
the Swan now called the Satisfaction aged 26, yeares
Tildas (horizonal lines over a letter)
Tildas represent single or double ‘m’ or ‘n’. Be mindful of the different ways of representing ‘per’, ‘pro’, ‘par’, ‘pre’, etc. along with ‘-con’.
EXAMPLES:
"comonly" (with a tilda over the m) should be transcribed as "commonly" (with the second m inserted by the transcriber and italicised)
