E D I T O R I A L M E T H O D l x i
Where place names or official phrases appear in italics or in all capital letters in
the salutation, dateline, or closure of an original, they are rendered in roman font
and first-letter capitalization.
Where it has not proved possible to redraw adequately an original drawing ac-
companying a text, it has been scanned in. In this case we have used endnote mark-
ers at the text fragments that appear with the drawing and have transcribed the rel-
evant words or phrases in the annotation.
German or French passages from a draft quoted in the endnotes as text variants
are not translated in the endnotes. Translations are only provided if a passage is
quoted for the purpose of commentary.
TRANSCRIPTION
We aim in our transcription procedure to maintain substantial faithfulness to the
original texts. No corrections, additions, deletions, or changes of characters, punc-
tuation, or arrangement are made except as set forth below.
Einstein wrote in Gothic script (“deutsche Schrift”) until July 1905 (Vol. 5,
Doc. 29), when he switched to Latin script, which he used the rest of his life. All
of his texts are printed in Latin type.
A dateline is placed flush right above the text, regardless of its position in the
original. Editorial additions or corrections to the dateline are in square brackets,
with question marks following uncertain parts of the dateline, or in the descriptive
note. The designation “circa,” abbreviated “ca.,” indicates uncertainty within a few
units of the designated day, month, or year. The dates of completion, submission,
and publication of printed articles are added, if known, together with the source of
the printed version. If address information is repeated by the author at the foot of a
document, it is omitted from the transcribed text.
A salutation is always placed flush left beneath the dateline, and a first paragraph
is indented. The first word in the first paragraph is usually capitalized.
For incoming correspondence, all handwritten, printed, or typed letterheads are
transcribed in the descriptive note. For outgoing correspondence, the address of the
recipient is transcribed in the descriptive note.
Handwritten or typed letterheads are included, whereas printed letterheads are
omitted unless relevant. However, letterheads typed in by Ilse Einstein on file cop-
ies (“Prof. Dr. A. Einstein”) are omitted.
Indentation is made where the author’s idiosyncratic use of a vertical line to in-
dicate a new paragraph occurs, such as in Paul Ehrenfest’s letters (e.g., Doc. 224),
and also in cases where the paragraphing is highly ambiguous but where indenta-
tions were probably intended or should have been supplied. Where there is clear