A Guide to Documentary Editing

First published in 1987 and widely acclaimed, A Guide to Documentary Editing is now available in a new and completely revised edition. Drawing on the experience of dozens of editorial projects, the author details every step of the editing process as now practiced in the electronic information age—planning a project, organizing materials, evaluating and transcribing texts, applying textual and editorial conventions, and preparing the edition for the publisher. The author even makes cautious predictions about future forms of electronic documentary publication: CD-ROMs, locally available text bases, and Internet sites. In addition, the author brings up to date her survey of literature in areas such as document selection, annotation, and non-verbal sources. Editors of such historical and literary documents as correspondence, journals, diaries, financial records, professional papers, and unpublished manuscripts will find this book an indispensable companion.

First published in 1987 and widely acclaimed, A Guide to Documentary Editing is now available in a new and completely revised edition. Drawing on the experience of dozens of editorial projects, the author details every step of the editing process as now practiced in the electronic information age — planning a project, organizing materials, evaluating and transcribing texts, applying textual and editorial conventions, and preparing the edition for the publisher. The author even makes cautious predictions about future forms of electronic documentary publication: CD-ROMs, locally available text bases, and Internet sites. In addition, the author brings up to date her survey of literature in areas such as document selection, annotation, and non-verbal sources. Editors of such historical and literary documents as correspondence, journals, diaries, financial records, professional papers, and unpublished manuscripts will find this book an indispensable companion.

Praise for the first edition: "I recommend this book to anyone who is curious about the work of documentary editors, thinking about initiating a documentary editing project, or using or thinking of using the fruits of documentary projects. It is a detailed, basic, generally descriptive but sometimes prescriptive how-to guide for the preparation of historical and literary manuscripts." — Isis

Booknews

New edition of a guide which details every step of the editing process as practiced in the electronic information age<-->planning a project, organizing materials, evaluating and transcribing texts, applying textual and editorial conventions, and preparing the edition for the publisher. The author also comments on new forms of electronic documentary publication such as CD-ROMs, locally available text bases, and internet sites, and she updates the guide's survey of literature including document selection, annotation, and nonverbal sources. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Mary-Jo Kline is curator, Special Collections, at the John Hay Library, Brown University.