Editing Historical Documents: A Handbook of Practice

by Michael E. Stevens, Steven B. Burg

Overview

This volume is aimed both at more experienced editors, who may wish to skip over the advice offered in the introduction, as well as at those who are new to the craft and want to know how to begin work on publishing historical documents of interest to them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761989608
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	10/02/1997
Series:	American Association for State and Local History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Michael E. Stevens and Steven B. Burg are both at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

Table of Contents

chapter 1 About the Authors chapter 2 Preface chapter 3 Introduction chapter 4 What, Why, How and for Whom? chapter 5 Selection and Arrangement of Documents chapter 6 General Principles of Transcription and Proofreading chapter 7 Transcription: Types of Sources chapter 8 Presenting the Text chapter 9 Principles of Annotation chapter 10 Forms of Annotation chapter 11 Special Issues of Access and Indexing chapter 12 Front and Back Matter chapter 13 Bibliography and Short Titles chapter 14 Index

Editorial Reviews

Historical editors have long wanted a reliable handbook that would provide easy access to the innumerable issues and practices that they daily deal with in their profession. Editing Historical Documents provides a wonderfully diverse examples of current documentary practice with full citations to the sources used as examples. With an emphasis on the descriptive rather than the prescriptive, this guide shows the range of options available to editors as they make the choices that will affect their editions and determine the policies and styles for the best possible rendering of their documentary collections. The handbook couples a lively, clearly written narrative of theory and practice with a selection of concrete examples drawn from the wisdom of generations of historical editors. The handbook is logically arranged and is readily accessible to the novice as well as the experienced documentary editor.

John P. Kaminski

Historical editors have long wanted a reliable handbook that would provide easy access to the innumerable issues and practices that they daily deal with in their profession. Editing Historical Documents provides a wonderfully diverse examples of current documentary practice with full citations to the sources used as examples. With an emphasis on the descriptive rather than the prescriptive, this guide shows the range of options available to editors as they make the choices that will affect their editions and determine the policies and styles for the best possible rendering of their documentary collections. The handbook couples a lively, clearly written narrative of theory and practice with a selection of concrete examples drawn from the wisdom of generations of historical editors. The handbook is logically arranged and is readily accessible to the novice as well as the experienced documentary editor.--John P. Kaminski, Association for Documentary Editing

From the Publisher