Letters and other manuscripts are transcribed and edited for publication as follows:
1. Documents are transcribed by volunteers from electronic images of the originals. These drafts are known as Level 1 transcripts. These are checked by the project's Archivist/Project Coordinator to ensure that the formatting instructions and conventions in the project's Transciption Protocol have been followed. The Archivist/Project Coordinator does not check all the text against the images of the original document – she/he only checks text which looks problematic.
2. A Researcher then carefully checks each Level 1 transcript against the electronic images of the document and edits the transcript where neccessary. Endnotes are then written to help future readers better understand the content of the letter. These endnotes often require detailed research e.g. to identify all the people mentioned in a letter. The edited and annotated transcripts are known as Level 2 transcripts.
3. The Level 2 transcripts, and especially the endnotes, are then carefully checked by a Wallace specialist (the project's Director). Additional endnotes are added if necessary. These become what we call Level 3 transcripts and are high enough quality for publication in The Correspondence of Alfred Russel Wallace.
4. The Level 3 transcripts are then formatted for publication in The Correspondence. The formatting process involves adding metadata, replacing the full reference citations in the endnotes with author and date citations, and standardising the mini biographies in the endnotes.