A critical apparatus in textual criticism of primary source material, is an organized system of notations to represent, in a single text, the complex history of that text in a concise form useful to diligent readers and scholars. The apparatus typically includes footnotes, standardized abbreviations for the source manuscripts, and symbols for denoting recurring problems.
Shakespearean studies
Many editions employ a standard format for a critical apparatus, as illustrated by a line from Hamlet, which the Oxford Complete Works prints as follows: The apparatus for the line might be rendered as: The format of the apparatus has several parts:
The location of the variant in the text
The lemma, which is the portion of the text to which the note applies
The source from which the edition took its reading
A list of variants, in each case followed by the source in which the variant is found, and set off with a semicolon.
To save space, frequently cited sources are usually assigned an abbreviation called a siglum. In Shakespeare editions, F always signifies the First Folio; the second through fourth folios are referred to as F2 through F4 respectively. Similarly, Q1 is the first quarto, Q2 the second quarto, and Q3 the third. In the example given, the first folio and the three early quartos each have a different reading of the line in question. The editors have concluded that all four early sources are corrupt, and instead have adopted a reading suggested by G. R. Hibbard. Other editors of the play may choose a different reading of the line. The apparatus summarizes all of the textual evidence, allowing readers to assess for themselves whether the editor has made the best choice. Sometimes the editor will add a commentary, defending the choice made, explaining why other readings were rejected, or discussing how other editors have treated the passage. This format has been used for critical apparatuses of Shakespeare and many other authors. In variorum editions, the apparatus is often placed at the bottom of the page. Sometimes a three-part format is employed, with the main text at the top of the page, textual variants in the middle, and the editor's commentary at the bottom. This remains the most common format for Shakespeare editions, although the Oxford Complete Works breaks with tradition by putting its critical apparatus in a separately published volume.
The first printed edition of the New Testament with critical apparatus, noting variant readings among the manuscripts, was produced by the printer Robert Estienne of Paris in 1550. The Greek text of this edition and of those of Erasmus became known as the Textus Receptus, a name given to it in the Elzevier edition of 1633, which termed it as the text nunc ab omnibus receptum. The Novum Testamentum Graece uses a system of sigla created by Caspar René Gregory in 1908, and extended by Kurt Aland, known as Gregory–Aland numbering; these sigla are widely used in academic writing about the Greek text. The most important uncials are given Hebrew, Roman, or Greek letter names: א, A, Dp, or Ξ. The papyri are assigned the Blackletter character followed by a superscript number. Here, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 208 + 1781 is and the Chester Beatty Papyri, which contains the Gospels and Acts, is. The superscript numbers follow the order of registration, and do not reflect the age of the manuscript or order of importance. The minuscules are given plain numbers, and the lectionaries are notated by script, ranging from ℓ1 up to ℓ2463.
From footnotes to endnotes
In the United States, bibliographer Fredson Bowers established a tradition of putting the critical apparatus at the back of the book, leaving the edited text clear of apparatus. This has the advantage of leaving the main text uncluttered with editorial details that may not be of interest to the general reader. However, this format is a disadvantage to scholarly readers, who are not able to see all of the textual evidence in one place.
Wikipedia studies
Although Wikipedia has a sophisticated apparatus for ensuring quality control, this differs from a critical apparatus, which is intended as an aid in recovering the original form of a text from the past, because Wikipedia is oriented towards the perfection of knowledge availability in the future. However, the "View history" feature can be seen as roughly analogous, with the user names corresponding to sigla, a systematic categorization of edits, shorthand for edit summaries, and abbreviations for marking edits corresponding to other symbols and markings to quickly delineate recurring editorial phenomena. The ability to regenerate earlier iterations of the article is something that a traditional critical apparatus could not do: scholars had to mentally reconstruct the text, and they became quite adept at this skill.
Electronic representation
The de facto standard for the representation of critical apparatus in digital scholarly editions is to follow the recommendations of the Text Encoding Initiative. While other formats are also used in digital literary studies this has become the most accepted storage format.
