**Please note that some of the information below might be out of date, and the Dartmouth site will soon have a new up-to-date section for editors/transcribers**
Prof Carolyn Dever came in as a new project lead in 2020 and since then the custodianship of the archive has passed to Dartmouth. Delighted to have passed the baton into such capable hands.
TRANSCRIPTION GUIDELINES
for the Michael Field Diary Archive
(N.b. FINAL UPDATE 2021.04.21: please be sure to use these modified conventions)
Basic Principles
Above all, copy the words and paragraphs as you see them. Use original spelling. Punctuation capitalization, special characters (ex: ! ? &), abbreviations, and Roman numerals should also be transcribed as closely as possible to how they appear in the original document. (See note below on the use of the ampersand.)
You will be provided with a Word document for your transcription. This document is pre-populated with page headers for every leaf of the diary.
Sample Header: Notebook 5, Page Image 97; Vol. V, Add MS 46785, fol. 45r; name.
Page headers are explained in full below. To get started, just replace “name” with your name, to record your contribution to the project. The rest of the page is blank for your transcription. It is fine if the transcription runs more than a single page in Word. Just begin the next diary page at the next header. Leave a blank line between the header and the start of your transcription.
We rely on bracket tags to markup most elements of the written page. These come in two types:
1) Freestanding tags, like [image], that do not need a closing tag.
2) Paired tags to indicate the beginning and end of a textual element: [sic]pararellograms[/sic]. Note that (a) the closing tag always includes a forward slash / immediately following the bracket, and (b) there is no space between the tag and the text it encloses.
Finally, please use Word’s footnote feature to record any questions you may have or to add additional information about the text. Such notes are invaluable because, as the transcriber, you are immersed in the intimate details of the journals, and your observations will help to make the transcription as accurate as humanly possible.
Transcription Markup
1) Hand. Use the writer’s initials in brackets, [E.C.] or [K.B.], on a separate line at the head of the passage to indicate whether the passage is in the hand of Edith Cooper or Katharine Bradley.
2) Illegible Words. Use four question marks in square brackets [????] to indicate a word that is completely illegible.
3) Unclear Words. When a word or phrase cannot be transcribed with perfect confidence, use your best judgment and indicate uncertainty by enclosing the word or passage in square brackets with a question mark at the end. For example, if you think the word might be testimony, transcribe it as [testimony?].
4) Deletions. Indicate a letter, word, or passage crossed out with the Word strikethrough feature: strikethrough.
Illegible words within a deletion. Use [????] to denote illegible words within an excision.
Unclear words within a deletion. Use [word?] to denote illegible words within an excision.
5) Additions. Use angle brackets, < and >, to surround text added or inserted to an existing line: Johnathon <Jonathon>. If the writer includes a caret mark ^, add it prior to the addition.
6) Substitutions. A substitution is an instance where the writers has deleted text and added new text to replace it. To indicate a substitution, simply mark the deleted text and the added text. When ordering substitutions, please transcribe the deleted text first, followed by the added text.
7) Incorrect or misspelled words. Working from memory, the writers may misspell the name of someone or misquote the title of a book or a line of verse. Indicate the beginning of such a word or passage with “sic” enclosed in brackets: [sic]. Use [/sic] to indicate the end.
Punctuation
1) Ampersand. When “and” is represented by the writers with a plus + sign, please transcribe as an ampersand & (otherwise the combination of dashes and plus signs so often found in the manuscript can be difficult to read in a typed interface).
2) Brackets. If you encounter handwritten square brackets, transcribe them as [[double brackets]].
3) Ellipses. Please use three unspaced periods … to indicate an ellipsis mark in the MS.
4) Dashes. The writers use a variety of dashes as punctuation, from short to long to longer. Please use one or more em-dash — characters, if possible, although multiple hyphens are also acceptable. To insert an em-dash, do any of the following:
a. On a Mac, hold down Alt+Shift+Minus.
b. On a PC, hold down Ctrl+Alt+- using the minus key on the numeric keypad (with Num Lock enabled).
c. Alternate PC method: Press +. (Windows key + period). Select the Ω tab, and you will see an em-dash in the list.
Page Formatting
1) Line Endings.
Please preserve the original line breaks on each page by using the ⮠ Enter or ⮠ Return key at end of each line.
2) Paragraphs.
a. Do not worry about indenting new paragraphs. Simply separate paragraphs by entering a blank line between them.
b. Identifying paragraphs can be a judgment call. Err on the side of caution and leave the text as part of a continuing paragraph if you are uncertain.
c. If the journal also includes extra space between paragraphs, add a second blank line.
d. If a paragraph ends at the end of a page, add a blank line before starting the next page.
e. If a paragraph continues onto the next page, add “cont” in brackets at the end of the last line. [cont]
3) Indents.
Use the Tab key (not spaces) to indicate indents from the left margin. Multiple tabs will indicate greater or lesser indents, as in verse, for up to six tabs.
4) Datelines.
a. New entries in the journals typically include a date for the entry, which may or may not include a place name. Together they constitute the dateline for the entry. Enclose the material with [dateline] and [/dateline].
b. The date may take any form—it may be the day of the week, the name of a holiday, a month and day, or any combination of these. Just add the bracketed label, as in:
i. [dateline]Friday, Oct. 4th, [/dateline].
ii. [dateline]Edinburgh St. Michael’s Day—& Sunday. [/dateline]
5) Dates.
Other than a [dateline], when dates are mentioned, even indirectly, please enclose them within a [date]…[/date] tag:
- We go [date]in two days[/date].
- [date]All last week[/date] I was in great Spiritual conflict.
6) Blank Pages.
When you come across a blank page, insert [blank page]. If the page includes a stamp, bookplate, or other insertion, substitute a bracketed comment, such as [Typewritten page inside front cover].
7) Text Blocks.
The journals often include material set apart from the rest of the text as a separate block, such as a block quote or a transcribed letter. Please add a bracket tag at the start and end of such blocks indicating the type of material included, i.e. [letter] and [/letter]. If you are uncertain about either the start or end of such a passage, add a footnote to indicate this. Select the appropriate tag below to label the material in the text block:
8) Heads.
The authors occasionally add a title to a part of their journal. Enclose it with [head] and [/head].
9) Columns.
Sometimes the journal includes text aligned in multiple columns, like a table. Use tabs to approximate the alignment. Add [table] at the beginning and [/table] at the end of the text
block. Keep the words in the appropriate columns rather than attempting to reproduce the exact visual appearance.
10) Drawings.
Use [image] to indicate a drawing, diagram, or symbol on a page. You can provide a brief description of the image in a footnote if you wish.
Page Headers
The supplied headers include key information that identifies the diary volume and page, as well as the name of the transcriber. This section explains the information contained in the header and how to double-check that your transcription is on the correct page, if necessary.
Sample Header: Notebook 5, Page Image 97; Vol. V, Add MS 46785, fol. 45r; Marion Thain.
1) The notebook number. This is the same as the volume number.
2) The page image number. Pages are not numbered in the notebooks, but the images of the pages are sequentially numbered. We use these to avoid ambiguity. To see the page image number, find the correct page on the website. Look at the web address at the top of your browser window. It will look similar to this:
https://michaelfielddiary.dartmouth.edu/page-view/23/90
The segment after /page-view/ is the volume number (23) followed by the page image number (90). You can switch quickly to a different page image by typing a different number.
3) The volume number. The same as the notebook number, but in Roman numerals. You can also see the volume number in the web address, following /page-view/.
4) The British Library manuscript number. The diaries are in the manuscript collection at the British Library, and this is their cataloging record (e.g. Add MS 46785). You can also see the BL manuscript number in the image filename, preceding the page image number.
5) The diary folio number. This is the number given in pencil at the top right-hand corner of every front page. A folio is a physical leaf of paper; they are numbered on the front of each sheet. To reference a folio, add “r” (for “recto”) to the folio number for the front side and “v” (for “verso”) for the back. In the sample above, fol. 45r indicates the front side of folio 45.
6) The transcriber’s name. Please replace “name” in the supplied headers with your own name as you wish it to appear on the site.
Michael Field Diary Volume leads assigned:
1868-69: Peter Logan
1888-89: Ana Vadillo (finished, but in need of reformatting)
1890: Holly Laird (to be completed by the end of 2021)
1891: Frankie Dytor (confirmed; to be completed by the end of 2021)
1892: Frankie Dytor (confirmed; to be completed by the end of 2021)
1893: Renata Kobetts Miller (confirmed; to be completed by the end of 2021)
1894: Sharon Bickle (confirmed; to be completed by June 2021)
January to October 1895: fully transcribed by Henri Locard.
October to December 1895: fully transcribed by Henri Locard.
1896: Katie Oliver Marra Rogers (confirmed; to be completed by end of 2021 at the latest)
1897: Carolyn Dever provisionally (by end of 2021).
1898: Diana Rose Newby (confirmed; to be completed by end of 2021 at the latest)
1899: Carolyn Dever (to be completed by summer 2021).
1900: Dennis Denisoff (confirmed; to be completed by end of 2021)
1901: Alex Murray (confirmed; to be completed by end of summer 2021)
1902: Tara Thomas (confirmed; to be completed by June 2021)
1903: Heather Bozant (completed and awaiting encoding)
1904: Pearl Chaozon Bauer (first half — completed and published); Sarah Kersh (second half — to be confirmed)
1905: in need of a transcriber
1906: Cherrie Kwok and Sarah Parker (first half); Elizabeth Anne TeVault (second half) (Holly to complete whole vol. by end of Jan 2021)
1907: Andrea Gazzaniga (completed and in process of finalizing the encoding)
1908: Holly Laird (complete and published)
1909: Olivia DeClark (confirmed; to be completed by August 2021)
1910: Olivia Moy (confirmed; to be completed by May 2021)
1911: Jill Ehnenn (confirmed; to be completed by end 2021)
1912: Sharon Bickle (confirmed; to be completed by April 2021)
1913: Nicole Cote and Sarah Parker (to be confirmed)
1914: Sarah Kersh (to be confirmed)
Final two volumes of loose-leaf materials: Peter Logan