Deciphering the Notebooks of History

Slate has an interesting article on deciphering the notebooks of politicians, authors, pastors, and other historical figures. Like Artist's sketchbooks, these give a critical insight into how the finished speech, sermon, story, or poem was developed.

But problems such as bad handwriting, shorthand, abbreviations, and even writing English words with a Greek alphabet contribute to a complex task in which errors are pounced upon. Scholars often are forced by budget cuts to enlist graduate students. On the plus side, they are more likely to use Google to catch bad translations; the the negative side, the "keyboard" generation has little exposure to modern cursive writing and struggles to read an 18th or 19th century hand.

The screen shots of famous journals make the link worth reading.