What does collating manuscripts involve in textual criticism?

In the context of textual criticism, collating manuscripts is a fundamental step in the process of recension, which aims to reconstruct the earliest form of a text based on surviving evidence.1

Collating involves the following key aspects:

• Comparison: Critics compare various "witnesses"—such as extant copies, editions, translations, or citations—against a selected standard form of the text, often a standard printed edition.12
• Registration of Variants: The primary goal is to identify and register all variant readings found across these different versions. This process reveals the correspondences and differences between the texts.12
• Identification of Evidence: Before collation, the witnesses must be identified, dated, and described using paleographical and bibliographical techniques.1
• Scope: When a large number of witnesses exists, collation may be limited to selected passages rather than the entire text. If only one witness exists, collation and recension are considered synonymous.1

The data gathered during this process is often presented as part of a critical apparatus, which provides the supplementary information necessary for scholarly study.3