Subject: tc-list How did I check transcriptions?

From: Timothy John Finney <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 16:53:56 +0800 (WST)

In response to Prof. Hurtado's question, I double-checked my 
transcriptions by comparing them against the sources from which they were
made, whether microfilms, photos, printed editions, or the mss themselves
in two cases (P13 and 075). I read the transcriptions I had made in my
first run letter by letter and aloud. I found that reading them aloud made
me much more likely to detect errors in my original transcriptions.

While this is not as rigorous as the independent transcription method
practiced by IGNTP, it still suffices to weed out a good number of errors.

The beauty of transcriptions on the Internet is that any errors would be
easy to detect if the manuscript's image was presented on the same web
page as the transcription. Corrections would also be straightforward --
just notify the person in charge of the site that you believe there is an
error in the transcription. 

The URL for my transcriptions and collation programs is
ftp://socs.murdoch.edu.au/pub/research/Finney

You will need a Mac to make sense of what's there (four disk images).
There seems to be a problem with the server at the moment as I can't get
through. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Best regards,

Tim Finney

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From: "Robert B. Waltz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 08:20:01 -0500

>through. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

If people have real problems with the files on the site, I've already
downloaded them and can convert them to other formats. Though they
are just text; any word processor should be able to handle them. At
worst, you may need to convert RETURNS to RETURN/LINE FEED for Wintel
machines, or to LINE FEEDs for unix. The real problem may lie in fonts;
reading the files without the appropriate typefaces is (to put it
mildly) difficult. I don't know if the Sinaiticus font is available
for Windoze. (I've no reason to try to find out. :-)

Bob Waltz
[email-masked]

"The one thing we learn from history --
   is that no one ever learns from history."