Guidelines for Transcriptions

1. Save your work regularly!
2. Transcribe the document and in the order you would read it. 
3. What's important are the words on the page that help make the document searchable. So don't worry about formatting, like underlined words, line breaks and so on (even though line breaks may help you get organised).
4. Use square brackets for anything that's not a word or if you're unsure of a word. If there's anything you want to note down that isn't a word, like the presence of a picture, you can write your notes in square brackets like [picture of bird]. Or if you want to note a word you're unsure of you can put it in like this [read or reed?] Don't add information or anything else that is not reflected in the original document.
5. You don't have to correct spelling and grammar or fill in abbreviations. The only exception would be to remove hyphens in hyphenated words so that the word can be searched. 
6. Don't worry! If something is puzzling you, take a break, or try something else. Someone else can work on it! Reading handwriting also gets easier with practice. 

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