Abstracting/Transcribing for the Journal

Wake Treasures only exists through the continued support of its readers and volunteers!  An editor cannot create the journal – many hands are needed!  One way you can help is by providing assistance to abstract or transcribe documents.  Whether you ferret out the records yourself or you work on one of our projects, at the end of the day, whatever content we include will "open doors" to possibly new and beneficial information.
 
And in case you were thinking…..
  1. "I don’t have time” - The nice thing about abstracting/transcribing is that even 10 minutes a day can be of great help and obviously we would encourage you to feel free to work on such even longer <grin!>
  1. “I don’t live in Wake County” - Though we always welcome record abstracts/transcripts that you provide to us, we recognize that's not always an option. With a few clicks of a mouse, we can provide material in the form of a .jpg or .pdf to anyone living anywhere to abstract/transcribe.
  1. “I’m not good enough” - Reading handwritten documents can be hard.  Transcribers/abstractors do make mistakes.  Our job is to not be perfect; it is to entice researchers to want to check out the really neat records we publish about.
  1. “I don’t know what to do” - We honestly just have a few "rules" for abstractors/transcribers to try and be consistent throughout the journal.  Additionally, for any records that seem to be tabular or contain a lot of repetitive date, we create templates for you to use.  This way you just have to enter the unique data and not worry about formatting or handling the boilerplate type information.
  1. “What if I can’t read something” – Don’t worry!  Our “rules” can help you to document the problem.  And we have project leads and editors who can help you get past the block and thus build your skills and confidence.
Instead ask yourself….
  1. “What if I had to do my research without using someone else’s abstracts/transcriptions” – then insert your answer here! 
Please consider helping create Wake Treasures by volunteering just a few minutes of your time.  Your contribution will be invaluable and benefit many researchers. Thank you!