Brown's Library

Transcription Conventions

• Spelling: Maintain original spelling (including u/v, i/j, and ff). Long "s" should be replaced with a regular "s". Terminal long "i" characters are transcribed as "i" not "j".
• Hyphenation: Preserve hyphens (including "=" characters) at the ends of lines.
• Capitalization: Maintain original
• Punctuation: Add modern periods, but don't add punctuation like commas and apostrophes.
• Deletions: Deleted characters and words are tagged with "strike" and then displayed with the line through them.
• Symbols: For apothecary and alchemical symbols, use these symbols followed by the meaning of the symbol in brackets: Rx [recipe]; ℈ [scruple]; ʒ [dram]; ʒs [half dram]; ℥ [ounce]; ℥s [half ounce]; ℔ [pound].
• For roman numerals following symbols that indicate amount, i.e., j=1, ij=2, iij= 3, v=5, type arabic numeral in brackets following roman numeral: i [1], ii [2], iii [3], v [5].
• Line Breaks: Hit return once after each line ends. Two returns indicate a new paragraph, which is usually indentation following the preceding sentence in the original. The times at the end of each entry should get their own paragraph, since the software does not support indentation in the transcriptions.
• Illegible text: Indicate illegible readings in single square brackets: [Dr?]
• A single newline indicates a line-break in the original document, and will not appear as a break in the text in some views or exports. Two newlines indicate a paragraph, and will appear as a paragraph break in all views.