Tips for Archaic Texts

One of my colleagues found a helpful slideshow on the internets, and passed it along to the department. I've made a few small changes and posted it here for your convenience. I apologize for being unable to give credit to the original author. Tips begin here:

It’s easy to go astray when you apply the wrong definition to a word. It can lead to a complete misinterpretation of a text. In order to fully comprehend and analyze an archaic text, we need to first understand what the words mean.

Here are some helpful strategies for reading archaic texts:

General strategies:

Focus! Set up reading conditions that will help you pay attention. Find something interesting even in the driest of passages. Annotate as you read.

Read actively. Ask questions, make connections, formulate opinions, make predictions, etc.

Sentence by sentence strategies:

Read from punctuation mark to punctuation mark, figuring out the meaning as you go.

Treat semicolons and colons as periods.  This doesn’t always work, but it usually does.

Read a line and think about what the passage might be about. Think about what you already know about the topic. Then continue reading.

Word by word strategies:

Read carefully and closely, paying attention to every word.

Beware of words that might take on different meanings in older texts.

Look up words you don’t know and try to expand your vocabulary.

Structural strategies:

In extremely long passages, figure out where new paragraphs would start.

Use the entry point strategy. Find something that makes sense to you and “enter” the passage there.