ONe of my volunteers owns a family Civil War Diary and 80 letters from the diarist to his wife. Her question is in transcribing how do you deal with punctuation, spelling errors, grammar, etc.? His vocabulary, but his spelling and grammar are atrocious. He has also made rare derogatory remarks about companions and superiors and she has been advised against including full text of those remarks. She has checked Turabian and Chicago Manual of Style for ideas but they weren't helpful. A google search has also not been very productive. Can anyone recommend any guidelines or offer suggestions on how best to approach this. She is leaning toward transcribing them as written but wants to make them understandable. Any information and ideas would be most welcome. I thank you. Suzanne S. Levy, Virginia Room Librarian Fairfax City Regional Library 3915 Chain Bridge Road Fairfax VA 22030 703-293-6383 http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/vr/ [log in to unmask] To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html