I think the strategies that I would use to explain my research to someone outside my field would be providing necessary background and avoiding the use of jargon. There are some phrases involved with translating the Latin annotations in the manuscript and organizing the research that can be a little confusing if you don’t know what they mean. For example, the way that many manuscripts or old books are organized is a little different than the way books are organized today. Instead of the front and back of every page being numbered, the manuscript I use has folios, where each page, front and back, only has one number, and you use “r” (recto) to designate the front and “v” (verso) to designate the back. The website that I’m making to organize my research will organize the book in the same way, and if my audience didn’t know how that worked, they might not be able to find what they’re looking for.

My current professional goals are to work in a library, archive, or collection of some sort. I figure that the audiences I’ll be interacting with in a position like that will mostly be people who need me to help them find information, or at least point them in the right direction. I expect that the ability to explain concepts like the one I described above will be very useful in my future.