The Editing Project Welcome to the world of the working historian. In this project you will be faced with many of the problems and opportunities historians encounter as they work towards an interpretation of the past. In the end, you will produce your own contribution to understanding which will become a permanent part of the Dickinson College archival collection. You will be handed a copy of one of these orations drawn from Dickinson's own manuscript collection. You will be responsible for placing the words and ideas of the long graduated senior into historical context.
Specific instructions follow.
The length of your lines need not duplicate those of the original, though. The next step will be to read through the document and identify any person, group, event, place, or obscure references about which information is needed to make the meaning clear to the average informed reader. Number and footnote each of these. Find the information you need to make the oration become a more adequate witness of the past and place it in a substantive footnote under its proper number. Document each footnote citing the source or sources of the information discovered, enclosed in parenthesis.