When They Find Out You Write
by Rosalind Foley on 06/30/12
People say the darndest things when they find out you write. They act as if it were some mystical or at least peculiar diversion from the norm. Sometimes, though, the revelation furnishes an opportunity.
We were having lunch with a group of my sister's friends, among them a young woman who volunteers transcribing Civil War letters, documents and memoranda for a National Park Service property. She had written a thirteen page protocol for transcriptors' usage and needed someone to proofread the draft. Would I mind?
I had some idea of the need for guidelines, having once transcribed a relative's recollections of growing up at the turn of the last century, the daughter of a Mississippi steamship captain. Her handwriting was challenging to say the least.
How to, for instance, show something hae been crossed out or written over? What to do when the writing is illegible? When words are left out? How much license may the transcriber take without altering the original meaning? How to show that a word has been invented? What if a document has been written once vertically and the paper turned for more writing horizontally? Consider that there are the margin notes, drawings, post scripts, corrections to be explained . . . You see the need for a standardized system.
Our friend's protocol required only a few suggestions, but reading it reminded me to appreciate those hardy souls dedicated to preserving and keeping historical records straight. It's tedious, brain draining work. Salute them.
