Center for Dewey Studies: Decipher and Transcribe

	Dewey's Letters
		Home Letters Index Editorial Process: - Finding New Correspondence - End of the Paper Trail - Decipher and Transcribe - Transformation into Data Letters: - Bentley Correspondence - Barnes Correspondence - James Correspondence	Decipher and Transcribe

Click image below to view the page with transcription.

John Dewey to Jack C. Lamb - March 8, 1949 - Montego Bay, Jamaica

Note: To properly view images please disable "Automatic Image Resize" in your browser's advanced settings.

The Center for Dewey Studies provides an electronic resource of Dewey's correspondence. To the left are images of the original documents which are held at SIU Special Collections Research Center.

The passage below notes a few unique aspects to the process of deciphering and transcribing Dewey's manuscripts.

For letters from John Dewey, we include corrections that provide insight into his thought processes. We do not indicate typographical or hand-written corrections when they are matters of spelling. We do, however, retain letters, whole words, and phrases that Dewey crossed out as well as his replacements, including Dewey's use of carets.

Dewey's typewriting presents other problems: he typically runs off the page horizontally and vertically. Sometimes his lines slant and run into each other.

If we are unsure of a word we add brackets and an italicized question mark: [?].

The editorial staff supplies footnotes to letters indicating historical and biographical information, cross references to correspondence referred to by the author, and additional explanations.

PDF: Principles of Transcription

Contact Us
·
FAQ