Transcriptions

Transcriptions have been kept as close to the original text as possible, both in style and appearance. However, archivists’ notations have not been transcribed, and line breaks, pagination, indentation of paragraphs, and vertical and horizontal spacing of the correspondence are NOT replicated. The exception to this policy is that line breaks and formatting are retained in transcriptions of legal and financial information inserted in the documents.

Large spaces on a line, between the end of a sentence and the beginning of another, are not normally rendered as a new paragraph unless the author changes subjects in the sentence following the space, in which case, a new paragraph indentation has been transcribed.

Punctuation has been transcribed as exactly as possible. If there is no punctuation at the end of a sentence, it has not been added.

• Exceptions are quotation marks where the writer puts a new quotation mark at the beginning of each new line. Only the quotation marks at the beginning and end of the quoted material have been included and
• Dashes of various lengths have been standardized to an em-dash. Dashes used to represent missing portions of a name are given as two em-dashes: Mr. S——.  Dashes used to break up words written on two separate lines have been removed.

If the author deleted text, either by crossing out or by writing over a letter or word, the deletion is indicated with a strikethrough format <…>. If the deleted word is illegible, it has been rendered thus: <…>.

If the author has inserted text above the line using a caret, the caret is transcribed on the line and the inserted text has been written above the line. If the author has not included a caret, one has not been transcribed.

If the author repeats the last word of a page at the beginning of the next page, it is not replicated in the transcription.

If two words that are normally not attached are written together, perhaps in haste, we have given the author the benefit of the doubt and transcribed them separately.

Archaic and misspelled words are retained without correction, abbreviations and style are left as they appear (underlining, superscripts, capitalization, dashes, etc.) are followed as closely as possible.

Regarding capitalization, each individual author capitalizes differently and usually consistently. Some letters, such as “s,” “o,” “a,” etc. are often treated differently within the same letter. We have tried to transcribe as accurately as possible considering proper usage and past usage by a particular author.

Text is often illegible due to bad handwriting, ink blots or smudged, torn, or missing sections of the document. William Short’s method of copying his letters often resulted in documents that were almost entirely illegible due to the quality of the paper he used and the amount of ink applied during the copying process, producing file copies that were almost completely smudged and unreadable.

• Illegible or missing material, whether from damage to the letters, tears, or unreadable handwriting, is rendered with angle brackets and ellipses <…>. If there are several illegible words and we can determine the number, we have used an <…> for each.
• Unclear characters or words, where unequivocal reading is possible, even though text may be missing, are displayed in light blue; readings that are uncertain are displayed in orange. 

“&c” or “&c.” are always transcribed as “etc” or “etc.”, as many times as the author has written it or them.

The date and place of a letter, if the author has included them, are placed at the top right (flush right) of the transcription in the dateline box, regardless of where they appear in the original version.

Signatures, regardless of where they are placed in the documents, are rendered flush right.

Postscripts are not preceded by the abbreviation P.S. if the author has NOT included it.

Information included on an envelope, internal address, endorsement, or docket are also transcribed after the text of the letter under [envelope], [internal address], [endorsement] and [docket]. Occasionally an author will repeat the name of the recipient at the bottom of the first page of a letter or after their signature. This is the internal address. An endorsement is usually written by the recipient and may include the author’s name and the date of the letter, when or if it was answered, possibly abbreviated in some form. However, on most of the letters Short writes, he indicates the name of the recipient and the date he wrote the letter on the margin or reverse of the last page. This is also considered as an endorsement. A docket may be in the same place as an endorsement, but is written by a later hand, perhaps that of a clerk or archivist.

Translations

We have transcribed non-English documents in the original text using the above transcription policies and have included translations below them without transcription markings. For English documents containing portions in non-English, we have included a translation in brackets [ ] immediately following that portion.

Names of people or places misspelled in the original document are spelled correctly in the translation. Foreign currency signs in the original are written out in full and in italics in the original language, i.e. 5 ^₶  is translated as 5 livres tournois.

Summaries

A summary of each published and calendared document of our collection accompanies it to give the user an idea of the topic of the document.

Annotations

In cases where we have chosen to calendar documents, we have attempted not only to summarize them, but also to mention and explain them in annotations to relevant documents we have decided to publish. We have also attempted to identify and provide brief identifications for people and organizations that play important roles in the context of the document being considered.

Abbreviations

For Manuscript Type in Document Details we have used the following abbreviations:
FC: file copy
RC: receiver’s copy
MS: manuscript

Citations

The citation for each document of our Short collection appears in Document Details. In the case of calendared Short documents found in other documentary editions, such as Founders Online, users should consult individual publications for details.