First Blog Assignment: Reflecting on Transcription

Due: February 27 by 11:59 p.m.

What you’ll do for this assignment

Write a blog post (about 750–1000 words) reflecting on what you learned by transcribing documents from the Colored Conventions Project on Douglass Day.

As a way to get started, ask yourself these questions:

  • What did I know about the Colored Conventions movement before I participated in the transcribe-a-thon? What’s the most important take-away for me about the movement itself as a result of participating?
  • What did I know about working with digitized archival documents before I participated in the transcribe-a-thon? What are some key take-aways for me about digital archives as a result of participating?
  • What did I know about transcribing archival documents before I participated in the transcribe-a-thon? What do I now know about document transcription that I didn’t know before?
  • What specific challenges did I face in doing the transcription? How did I overcome these challenges (if indeed I did)?
  • Overall, how did the experience of engaging with archival documents change my sense of relationship to, or understanding of, the history to which these documents belong?

Use these questions to stimulate reflection and help you organize your thoughts. Don’t feel that you have to answer every one of these questions in the blog post itself. Don’t include these or similar questions themselves in your blog post. You may, however, include headings as in the blog post template below. (Feel free to come up with your own headings in place of the template headings.) Headings are optional.

In your blog post, include at least one image of a document you transcribed during the transcribe-a-thon. An included image should be either a downloaded copy of the image, a properly configured pointer to the image that brings the image up in the body of your post (not simply a link to the image), or a good quality screen grab or photo that you took. Be sure to identify any included images properly and accurately. Your blog post should use the image(s) to ground your reflection in concrete detail.

How you’ll do it

  1. Draft your blog post in one of your journal files using Markdown. Use the preview pane in VS Code to make sure everything looks right.
  2. Register an account on the English @ SUNY Geneseo website (if you don’t already have one from another course) and join the group Digital Humanities. (Be sure to follow the instructions for two-factor authentication. Note: You won’t be able to set up 2FA until you’ve joined Digital Humanities.)
  3. When you’re happy with what you’ve written, log into the site, go to the group’s blog, Digital Humanities at Geneseo, click +New in the black ribbon at the top of the site, select Post, and paste your post content from VS Code into the editor there. The editor understands Markdown! Use the Preview button in the post editor to see how your post will look when published.
  4. When you’re ready to submit your post, click Submit for Review.

Come up with a short title that succinctly captures the thrust of your post. Avoid at all costs a generic title such as “Blog Post 1.” Put your post title in the title field in the post editor. Don’t repeat your title in the body of your post. Don’t put your name in the post body, either. It will appear automatically once your post is published.

How your post will be evaluated

You can earn up to 15 points for this assignment. In evaluating your post, I’ll be asking myself the questions below. It’s a good idea to ask yourself how you would answer these questions before submitting your post. I’ll send you my answers to these questions together with a brief comment and the number of points you earned.

In your blog post, did you …

  Not really A little bit Somewhat Pretty much Yes!
reflect thoughtfully on what you learned from participating in the transcribe-a-thon, explaining how the activity changed your relationship to the history that the Colored Conventions documents embody (or why it didn’t)? □ □ □ □ □
compare what you knew going into the transcribe-a-thon about archival work and/or document transcription with what you know now? □ □ □ □ □
give examples of one or more challenges you faced, and how you overcame them (if you did)? □ □ □ □ □
properly incorporate in your blog post at least one image of a document you transcribed during the transcribe-a-thon? □ □ □ □ □
document any use you made of GenAI? □ □ □ □ □
use care in the composition of your post? □ □ □ □ □
give your post a short title (in the title field, not the post body) that succinctly captures its thrust? □ □ □ □ □
format your post properly using Markdown? □ □ □ □ □

A blog post template

The template below illustrates, in skeletal form, with mostly placeholder text, one way that you might approach this blog post. Copy it and paste it into VS Code. If the long lines aren’t wrapping to the width of your VS Code window, use option-Z (Mac) or alt-Z (Windows) to wrap them. (You can use these commands to toggle between wrapped and long-line views.)

Click the Preview icon in VS Code to see how the content would look with the Markdown rendered as HTML.

The template illustrates a few things to keep in mind as you draft your post:

  • There is no title in the post text itself. Your title will go into the Title field in WordPress. Don’t repeat it in your post. A good title for this template post—one that captures the post’s main idea—would be “Lost and Found.”
  • Since the post has a title, the highest-level heading used in the post is a level-two heading, with the heading text preceded by ##.
  • The post uses headings to organize the content so that a reader can easily follow the thought. A list helps to do the same. These features are completely optional. They’re being used here merely to remind you that Markdown is one tool at your disposal for making your post engaging and easy for a reader to follow.
  • Paragraphs in the post are separated by empty lines.

Once you have a decent draft of your post in VS Code, go to WordPress, start a new post, put your title in the Title field and paste your Markdown into the editor.

The editor will display your Markdown symbols (such as ##), but these won’t be displayed when your post is published. To get a peek at how your published post will look, click “Preview.” A preview of your post will open in a new tab or window.

You can return to your post and continue editing it in the editor. If you do, be sure to click “Save” periodically.

When you’re satisfied with your post, click “Submit for Review.”


## What I transcribed

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt.

## What I learned from transcribing

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor.

### What I learned about working with documents

Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium.

### What I learned about the history these documents embody

Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi.

## How I see things now

Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. *Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus.* Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. **Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis** dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.