I found the overall process of digital text creation very interesting. I felt connected with the document since I analyzed each word on each page multiple times to make sure it was accurate, and that it made sense in context. It was very fascinating to learn about somebody else’s life this way. The overall challenge was that people spoke and wrote differently back then, so I needed to adapt. There were many obstacles and challenges. First, many of the Latrobe pages were blurry so we had to contact the archivist in London to get clearer copies of the pages. Once this was done it was a lot smoother, but there were still some issues. I had to adjust to abbreviations and words in old English, and sometimes the handwriting was just difficult to read. I also had to remember to constantly save my work in case the window closed or the website crashed. With this project comes the pressure of making an utterly precise digital text since this is the first digital edition. Everything needs to be correct especially because we will be using other tools to examine these texts. I thought that I did well transcribing this kind of handwriting because I brushed up on my cursive last year. I originally learned script in fourth grade, but never really used it again except for my signature. However, last semester I was in a humanities course where our professor required us to hand write our journals in script, so it actually served as nice practice for this project. For certain letters that were hard to identify, I used the provided resource that showed the alphabet in old style cursive handwriting. If I was having trouble with a word or letter I would look at something I had already transcribed and compared it to that. I was also able to figure out some words in context. This process was very interesting, but very meticulous.
Latrobe Transcription Pages 15-21:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JskmdGh4grdhqHksXQmYSCRA0D3VlchO1ceAMjTDobo/edit
Page 15
http://moravian.bucknell.edu/scripto/?scripto_action=transcribe&scripto_doc_id=300031&scripto_doc_page_id=4000470
Page 16
http://moravian.bucknell.edu/scripto/?scripto_action=transcribe&scripto_doc_id=300031&scripto_doc_page_id=4000471
Page 17
http://moravian.bucknell.edu/scripto/?scripto_action=transcribe&scripto_doc_id=300031&scripto_doc_page_id=4000472
Page 18
http://moravian.bucknell.edu/scripto/?scripto_action=transcribe&scripto_doc_id=300031&scripto_doc_page_id=4000473
Page 19
http://moravian.bucknell.edu/scripto/?scripto_action=transcribe&scripto_doc_id=300031&scripto_doc_page_id=4000474
Page 20
http://moravian.bucknell.edu/scripto/?scripto_action=transcribe&scripto_doc_id=300031&scripto_doc_page_id=4000475
Page 21
http://moravian.bucknell.edu/scripto/?scripto_action=transcribe&scripto_doc_id=300031&scripto_doc_page_id=4000476
Jessica Hom is currently a sophomore at Bucknell University. At Bucknell, she plays on the varsity softball team and is currently undeclared. She is from Syosset, NY and is a graduate from Syosset High School.