Group Textual History Project

For this assignment, we did research in the Carleton Archives to produce an edition showing the textual history of a Carleton document. This was my favorite assignment of the term since it felt like the greatest chance for truly independent writing and research; it was entirely up to us to study the documents, figure out what was interesting about their evolution, and decide how to convey that information to a reader.

My partner and I were assigned to study Carleton’s Academic Regulations and Procedures handbooks, and we chose specifically to focus on the evolution of Carleton’s attendance policy between 1973-2010. The text was filled with minor changes throughout and was also majorly revised at one key point in its history. As such, we decided to represent the text through two parallel editions – one for the year before the major changes, and one in 2010 – each with their own apparatus detailing the smaller changes made in those time periods. 

If we had had more time for the project, I wish we could have included more analysis on the effects of the changes and why they may have been made instead of just describing them. Otherwise, I’m very proud of how the edition came out, and I’m very grateful for the experience I had doing research in the archives – I hadn’t realized that that was a resource available to students, but I’d be very interested to find ways to go back for projects in other classes in the future.

You can view and download the final version of the edition below: