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Transcription Process is really important while researching old archives. It can be described as a “strange learning experience”. Original text is quite tricky and difficult for me to understand. Challenges can be summed up to 3 parts : mysterious hand writing, intricate grammar and wrong pronunciation.
For example, on this capture, the third word in line one is “brought”. However, the handwriting at that time scripts “b” pretty much like an “l”. This is the hand writing difficulty. In line 4, the fifth word is “Rote”. Powell tried to say “wrote” but the pronunciation was different from modern English . This kind of spell error increases the difficulty of transcription mission. Then, this entire sentence can be a perfect evidence of “intricate grammar”. There are 6 verbs in this sentence, with only one pause at line 5.
For me, transcribing the text is just like learning a completely new language. I got familiar with the new hand writing, pronunciation and grammar by repeating reading them. It is an extraordinary experience to transcribe because I was able to “see” my improvement in learning. I could feel that transcription was converting from a “mission impossible” to a hard task. All in all, it is a nice experience.
P.S. Sublime is the best text editor for transcription task.
- It is a Plain Text Editor
- There is no auto edit feature, which is annoying
- It is easy to manage indent with it (There will be a vertical line that reminds users about the indent level.
- Black background is good for eyes