Thanks for posting these,
@Zivio - it's really fun to participate in these projects.
Some professional perspectives that might be useful (speaking as a paleographer):
1. It is okay if your transcription is not 100% correct! Multiple people will independently transcribe each document, and afterward, scholars like me will review the transcriptions to see what the consensus looks like and base the critical analysis around the most likely possible readings.
2. Don't pick documents at random: You will have the most fun (and do the best work) if you choose documents that have content in an area you are already very familiar with. For instance, I often go for the recipe books, because I also have professional (and plenty of home) experience cooking, and it makes it easier for me to interpret ambiguous markings, since I have practical experience with how recipes in general work.
* So you might choose to transcribe letters or documents from professional fields that are adjacent to your own - like, if you have professional experience as a lawyer, go for the court documents! (there are so. many. court documents - one of the court documents from the 14th century that we just recently got around to transcribing actually exonerated the poet Geoffrey Chaucer in a "rape" case - it turned out that he wasn't a "perpetrator" of "raptus" in what turned out to be a labor dispute (not a sex crime), but a co-defendant!)
* Or you might focus on letters or documents related to activities or hobbies - like, are you a sailor? (recreational or professional). There are a LOT of letters from the age of sail, written by sailors to their families & friends, and generally they like to talk about what goes on in their daily lives at sea, so knowing the technical jargon really helps!
* Or you might be especially familiar with a local dialect of a language that a document is written in, and thus be able to make better judgments about alternative spellings and idiomatic usages.
3. When you transcribe, transcribe
exactly what you think you see - try really hard not to make "corrections" to spelling or to include missing words or letters that you know the writer must have intended.
4. Once you find a niche you enjoy - stay there a while! You'll produce better transcriptions as you get more experience interpreting a particular scribal hand or type of document.
@Zivio @Erica McPhee Thank you for putting your efforts into these projects! Your work as Citizen Archivists/Volunteers can really enhance the work that specialists do in academic and archival settings!
--yours truly, K
