Transcribe Shadd Cary

Where should I start?
Transcribe Shadd Cary has two types of activities: transcribing & finding names. Select a button on the home page to explore each activity. We have organized the activities by level of difficulty. Feeling like you want to get comfortable first? Start with "Transcribe (Printed). Feeling adventurous? Take your fabulous self to the Transcribe (Complex) activity!

What if I transcribe something wrong?
That's okay! We are most interested in what you see on the page. Other users will also be transcribing the same documents that you are, so we will be able to compare and contrast different attempts at transcriptions to come up with the most accurate results possible. There are also buttons you can use during the transcription to indicate if a section of text is unclear.

How do I locate names in the sources?
Compared to transcribing, this is much simpler! To locate the names of people, read the entire document. Then simply enter in the name of any people who appear in the document. Make sure to separate every name with a semi-colon! This way, we can build a fuller and more complex understanding of Mary Ann Shadd Cary's life & communities.

For some reason, my transcription isn't formatted like the document. What should I do about this?
Yes, we understand that you may want to keep the document's original format, but we are primarily concerned with word by word transcription. Please do keep lines and paragraphs with each other, but do not worry about line breaks, end-of-line hyphenated words, and etc. Please retain original spelling and appearance of the texts (misspellings, capitalized/uncapitalized letters, punctuation, and, if possible, symbols). The deletion, unclear, and insertion tools can help you show us that these anomalies are present in the original document, not your mistakes.

Where can I go to receive help?
Each activity has a detailed tutorial tab. If you still have questions, we invite you to open a new tab and go to our Talk message boards. We will have subject experts on Shadd Cary available to answer any questions all day on February 14, 2023. We thank you for your patience as our subject experts move as quickly as possible to address all questions. If you are eager to keep going, you can post your questions on Twitter and use the hashtag #DouglassDay. Perhaps one of the other thousands of people will see your questions and can help even quicker!

I don't feel like I can accurately transcribe this document because of time or visibility, what are my options?
That's okay! You have two options in this situation. You can either refresh your browser to receive a new document or you can choose another activity back on the home page. If you refresh the page, anything that you did transcribe will not be saved and there's no guarantee that the new document will be related to the one you were just transcribing, since it is a random selection. We hope this gives you the freedom to choose the documents that you feel most comfortable with and believe that you can fully and accurately transcribe!

Is there a 'save draft' feature, or do we need to transcribe the entire document in one sitting?
Unfortunately, there is no 'save draft' feature. To finish a document, you must transcribe it in one sitting (or choose another document). There are ways that you can return to a document that you are interested in! If you click the heart symbol under the document window in the workflow, you can save the document for later for your own enjoyment or to discuss it on our talk boards!

Can I transcribe an entire text, rather than just one page?
Because Zooniverse chooses the documents randomly based on if they still need transcribing or not, we cannot guarantee that you will be able to transcribe an entire text of Shadd Cary's work. We love that you want to transcribe an entire text!