LibGuides: UNIV 100: Sundial Transcription Project: Project Instructions

Tutorial

Formatting of the transcript is adopted in part by transcription guidelines from How to Transcribe by the Library of Congress.

In our database, each Sundial page has its own transcript that appears above the metadata.
The priority for transcribing articles and other elements is from top to bottom and left to right. That is, articles are often arranged in columns, therefore transcribe the article until it reaches the point in the column where it continues with the next column to the right. See this example of the order of newspaper elements to tag.
For fluid reading, keep all article text together that appears on the page, not continuations on other pages. So, if article text is broken up by an announcement (filler), advertisement, or small article, just finish the article text that appears on the page, then transcribe the announcement or advertisement. See example numbers 7 and 8.
For articles continued on another page, tell the reader where to go when an article continues: For example, the page text "(Continued on page 5)" needs to be replaced with more specific text to point readers to the beginning of the next segment - e.g. replace with "[Article continued on page 5. See BSU in Court on continued page], where "BSU in Court" is the article subtitle that denotes where on page 5 the article continues.
No underlines, bold, italic, special fonts, or color.
Use line breaks only to:
- Tag a structural component
- To separate components with an extra line break (for example, the article title and the article text)
Preserve spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and word order. For misspelled words, you may add the correct spelling in square brackets to the right of the misspelled word.
Do NOT indent new paragraphs, rather hit enter (return).
Do NOT reproduce page layout.
Do NOT expand abbreviations in the text. The exception is for abbreviations are not expanded elsewhere in the text, in which case you may do so by using square brackets to the right of the abbreviation, if the abbreviation can be determined.
Replace illegible words or phrases with “[?]”. Mark illegible letters with the same number of question marks as there are illegible letters, e.g. “[ar?????]”.

We are using the structural component “vocabulary” as an internal standard guided in part on the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) for newspapers.

Use the following vocabulary to tag the structural components below using the formatting as seen here. The tags are in alphabetical order and are should always contain square brackets "[ ]". Tag descriptions are in italics.

[Advertisement title:] -- use if applicable See example numbers 4, 5, 6 and 9

[Advertisement text:] -- use if applicable See example numbers 4, 5, 6 and 9

[Article title:] See tag key

[Article subtitle:] -- use if applicable See tag key

[Article text:] See tag key

[Byline:] -- Credit author, photographer, or similar immediately following [Article title:] or [Photo description:] See tag key

[Comic strip:] -- Cartoons containing multiple frames. Indicate “FRAME1:” followed by the visual description, then “CAPTION:” followed by the verbatim text.

[Cartoon:] -- Cartoons confined to a single frame. Give a visual description of the frame, then add “CAPTION:” followed by the verbatim text (if applicable).

[Filler title:] – Title attached to a brief section or announcement of typically one or two short paragraphs. See tag key

[Filler text:] -- A brief section or announcement of typically one or two short paragraphs. May or may not have a title. See tag key

[Highlights:] -- Issue highlights that usually appear near or after the Nameplate on the front page (page 1).

[Image:] -- Used for any image that’s not a photo.

[Masthead:] -- Block of text listing publisher, editors, writers and other Journalism staff.

[Nameplate:] -- After the page number, the first thing recorded on page 1. Include title of publication, volume number, issue number, date, and place of publication - Example: “DAILY SUNDIAL, Volume 13, Number 29, Friday, November 8, 1968. San Fernando Valley State College.” Subsequent pages may have nameplate, but often with less information. See tag key

[Op-ed:] -- Stands for opinion-editorial to be used for letters to the editor or for any article labelled “opinion”.

[Page #:] -- Record at the beginning of each page whether a page number is provided on the source or not.

[Photo description:] -- If no photo caption, describe what is seen in the photo with any context that might be apparent. See tag key

[Photo caption:] -- The words beneath the photo describing the contents of the image. See tag key

[Puzzle:] – For crosswords, add the text for each clue, followed by the number of letters for the answer. EXAMPLE: “1. Foods that contain seeds (5 letters)”, then repeat.

[Section title:] -- Use for title of a newspaper section containing multiple articles. For example: "Sports" or "Entertainment".

Receive initial page assignment handout from Mallory.
Open a word document for each page you transcribe. Save each file using 1) the brief name of the newspaper, 2) the date of the issue, and 3) the page number, all separated by underscores "_". for example; Sundial_03-10-1960_p3
Begin transcription/encoding work in a Word document. Save your document with a file name that includes the publication name, date, and page number separated by underscores. For example: Sundial_03-10-1966_p5 would be the file name for page 5 of the Sundial issue dated March 10, 1966.
Submit Word document through Box link from instructor Debbi Mercado.
Request new page assignment from Mallory (mallory.furnier@csun.edu) if there are hours remaining to fulfill your project time requirement