As described in Abbott & Williams, an editor needs to decide whether he or she makes use of documentary (noncritical) editing or critical editing. With documentary editing, the editor can present a text through a diplomatic reprint, which preserves only the text such as the wording, punctuation, spelling, etc. but also may present notes. If the editor chooses to produce documentary editions, he or she can present the text in facsimile, which maintains the physical detail of the document, or use genetic or synoptic transcription, which refer to editions that offer numerous documentary texts of a work. Additional formats of documentary editions are literal transcription on facing pages, transcription of various states in parallel columns, and presenting various formats of documentary editions electronically in databases and digital archives. Critical editing in contrast gives the editor the choice to incorporate other readings from documentary texts or editorial emendations. In addition, an editor has to determine the authorial intention of a reading and whether or not the author’s intentions might have changed over time, so that editors may have to reconstruct multiple texts. Critical editors can construct a text based on the intentions of more than the author (copyeditors, proofreaders, etc.), and have to decide to what extent their concept of authorship can be broaden, taking into consideration the nonauthorial. 

Increasingly using electronic editing is shaping future knowledge in a field in that it will open up processes of editing to more groups of people. With more digital editions and projects in scholarly publishing, collaborative processes will allow classrooms to participate in the edition process, and enables sharing their knowledge. In one of my American studies classes last semester, we annotated a digital edition of The Negro and the Nation on the Manifold platform. By bringing our voices into the text, we were able to create a community dialogue and bring interdisciplinary perspectives into the field of American studies.