Manuscript Notes
An Expanded Abbreviation Adds Letters That the Image May Not Show
Read an expanded abbreviation as an editorial representation and check the edition’s conventions before expecting every printed letter in the manuscript image.
Ideas worth reading closely
Manuscript Notes
Look closely at the objects that carry ideas across time.
Manuscript Notes
A Marginal Addition Has a Location Before It Has an Author
Describe a manuscript addition’s position and relationship to the main text before deciding who wrote it or when it entered the page.
Manuscript Notes
What Does Witness A Mean? Read an Edition’s Key Before Its Notes
Letters beside textual variants are local labels whose meanings must be checked in the edition. Keep the witness key beside your notes instead of guessing identities.
Manuscript Notes
A Manuscript Catalogue Can Identify a Passage by Its Opening Words
Use opening and closing words in a manuscript catalogue as locating clues, while checking which work, passage and physical leaves the entry actually describes.
Manuscript Notes
Folio 12r and 12v: Two Sides, One Leaf
Learn how recto and verso references identify the sides of a manuscript leaf, and keep them separate from a digital viewer’s image counter.
Manuscript Notes
A Palimpsest Has More Than One Writing History
Understand a palimpsest as reused writing material, then keep the evidence for its different layers separate from assumptions about why reuse happened.
Manuscript Notes
The Apocryphon of James: A Modern Title and a Surviving Witness
The Apocryphon of James shows why a familiar published title, the date of a manuscript and the proposed date of composition need separate notes.
Manuscript Notes
A Manuscript Shelfmark Is a Better Bookmark Than a Screenshot Name
Keep an institution’s manuscript identifier with your notes so a saved image remains connected to its catalogue record and the object it represents.