Markup 1: HTML, XML, EpiDoc

Sunoikisis Digital Classics Spring/Summer 2018

Thursday Feb 8, 2018, 16h00-17h15 Greenwich Mean Time

Convenors: Gabriel Bodard (Institute of Classical Studies), Monica Berti (Leipzig), Martina Filosa (Köln)

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/NuwHT_jw50k

In this session we will discuss markup languages with a focus on HTML, XML, and EpiDoc. The session is complementary to Markup 2 (Feb. 22).

In the first part we will introduce markup languages describing the difference among presentational markup, procedural markup, and descriptive markup. We will also briefly introduce recent lightweight markup languages, as for example Markdown.
The second section will take a step back and look at pre-digital, arbitrary markup schemes, and what the underlying information the marks are attempting to communicate. How does digital markup build on and convert the semantics of these schemes to machine-readable form?
The final section will show some structural and semantic markup in a digital text edition, focusing on the layout of text and demonstrating the use of the Oxygen XML editor.

Nyhan, J. (2012). “Text encoding and scholarly digital editions”. In Digital Humanities in Practice, edited by C. Warwick, M. Terras, J. Nyhan. London: Facet Publishing. Pre-proof available: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Julianne_Nyhan/publication/284178309_Text_encoding_and_digital_scholarly_editions/links/564e2b2f08aefe619b0fad83/Text-encoding-and-digital-scholarly-editions.pdf
Roberto Rosselli Del Turco (2016). "The Battle We Forgot to Fight: Should We Make a Case for Digital Editions?" In Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices, M. J. Driscoll and E. Pierazzo (eds.). Pp. 219-238. Available https://www.openbookpublishers.com/htmlreader/978-1-78374-238-7/ch12.xhtml#_idTextAnchor029

Coombs, J.H. et al. (1987). "Markup systems and the future of scholarly text processing". Communications of the ACM. ACM. 30 (11): 933–947. Available: http://xml.coverpages.org/coombs.html.
Renear, Allen H. (2004). "Text encoding." In A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell. Available: http://digitalhumanities.org:3030/companion/view?docId=blackwell/9781405103213/9781405103213.xml&chunk.id=ss1-3-5&toc.depth=1&toc.id=ss1-3-5&brand=9781405103213_brand
Sahle, Patrick (2016). "What is a Scholarly Digital Edition?" In Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices, M. J. Driscoll and E. Pierazzo (eds.). Available: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/htmlreader/978-1-78374-238-7/ch2.xhtml#_idTextAnchor009

tba

Please install the Oxygen XML editor and register for a demo license. This will allow you to use this software for free for 30 days, but thereafter you would have to pay to continue to use it.
Choose a short ancient or other primary source, either in the original language or in English translation, and transcribe this text into an empty XML file. Without applying any existing schema, add XML tags to structure and annotate your document, choosing those features that you believe are important and worth recording.
Think about issues including: presentational, procedural and descriptive features of your encoding; the scalability of this exercise; whether anyone else would understand your markup (and if that matters); unique features against interoperability. What choices might you make differently with a different kind of text?