Editing in the Digital Age: Historical Texts and Documents

WEEK ONE

Week One focuses on the editorial theory of literary and non-literary works, from manuscript and printed text, to the digital page. Its central aims are to engage participants in the basics of scholarly editing, textual scholarship and the critical apparatus of edited texts - building on the approaches and terminology founded in the printed editions of texts of the past 200 years – and to apply these to emerging digital editions.

By the end of Week One, participants can expect to be able to:

• Engage with the writings of traditional and emerging editorial theorists
• Gain hands-on experience of using and appraising digital editions from CD-ROM to online digital resource
• Plan a text for editing in print and digital media, arguing for a particular editorial approach.

WEEK TWO

 Week Two focuses on the practical application of editorial theory covered in Week One to a range of historical texts and documents. A basic working knowledge of XML is desirable. Participants attending Week Two ONLY should be able to demonstrate a working knowledge of editorial theory in their application. The central aims of Week Two are to train participants in the issues of transcribing historical texts and documents, and to familiarise them with transcriptions, facsimiles, editing, and manuscript description using XML.

By the end of Week Two, participants can expect to be able to:

• Gain experience of transcribing a range of historical texts and documents
• Gain experience of emerging digital editing resources and tools
• Gain experience of marking-up document images
• Competently edit transcriptions and create manuscript descriptions using XML.

At the end of both blocks, students will be expected to make an oral group presentation 'Towards an Edition' of a text or document of their choice (i.e. literary work, corpus of letters, other writings &c), outlining their editorial approach and their justification of that approach, their intended audience, their proposed use of hypertext tools (if any) and their intended function. Presentations will be to the entire class.