completed transcription, needs a-fixin'

I think it would be worth capturing the missing reference numbers, but wouldn't encourage anyone to exhaustively seek them out. Just record a link here if you find something.

-Victoria, Community Manager

Hi Suz. 

I've been doing this work for about 5 years and work with 6 different transcription sites.  It is true that as people gain more experience working with the records, they become better transcribers.  However, there will be times when a word can not be transcribed because the manuscript lacks contextual clues to determine what was being written.  In other cases, like the manuscript on this envelope, there might not be enough script to compare the way a writer created their letters.  As for the reference numbers, I defer to the LOC staff as well and this is why I begged the question.  I doubt that anyone is going to search for a record using a reference number and a researcher who finds the document will see the reference number of the image.  To me, it seems an incredible waste of time to worry about these types of petty errors. 

Hi Victoria.  I think this script is unlike any of the others and am uncertain we can be sure there is another "a" written by the same scribe.  I think it is "read" because the "c" in Lincoln does not look the same as the letter in the word in question. Why did Lincoln read or receive this?  Perhaps a researcher would know the answer.   Quite honestly, except for the fact that these are in a collection of Lincoln's papers, I could make a case that this doesn't even say Lincoln.  That is a very unclear "o" and "n".  I agree with you that the brackets could have different placement.  Perhaps asterisks should have been added to the entire phrase to indicate that it is marginalia. 

Every site has a learning curve, and this one is no exception, especially in the way square brackets are being employed and illegible text is transcribed using multiple question marks or simply [  ].   I prefer when sites use [strikethrough] [/strikethrough] for deletions, and [illegible] for words that can't be deciphered.  It's unfortunate that there is little uniformity among various sites.  But, at least the effort to produce searchable, readable text is being attempted by so many. 

Yes!  A great idea, suzanne piecuch. I second your nomination to make this the official location for posting any completed pages you come across that need a little more work.  Your title for the thread is perfect!  "Completed transcription, needs a-fixin'" .

Anything posted here will also be added to Community Mangagers' running list of items to be reopened/corrected when we're able.

(And I agree, that letter is fantastic, Jennifer Parker!)