About the Project
The Joseph Smith Papers Project is not a “documentary history” project comprising all important documents relating to Joseph Smith. Instead, it is a “papers” project that will publish, according to accepted scholarly and documentary editing standards, documents created by Joseph Smith or by staff whose work he directed. The project also includes papers received and “owned” by his office. These key documents include, especially, the diaries, outgoing and incoming correspondence, revelations, contemporary reports of discourses, editorials, and notices.
Because the Joseph Smith Papers Project meets the necessary scholarly and documentary editing criteria, it has earned an endorsement by the National Archives’ National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). To ensure accuracy of the texts, we undertake three independent levels of text verification for each manuscript, including a final verification against the original.
This comprehensive edition will include all known and available documents meeting our criteria as Joseph Smith documents. With selective editions, documents may be excluded because they are of less interest or importance or about topics not emphasized in the collection. Comprehensive editions make no such exclusions. Each document will be published in its entirety in paper and electronically. The only exceptions are routine or repetitive forms and certificates. All such documents will be listed in a calendar of documents and published electronically, but only samples will be published in paper.
