Detailed Instructions

A complete edition of a text for Literature in Context should:

1. be based on a reliable and authoritative etext or edition, preferring first editions where possible;
2. have a clear and accurate reading text transcribed from that edition;
3. be annotated to enable a reader to put the literary text in context;
4. include page images from the edition on which the reading text is based;
5. be marked up in valid, well-formed TEI.

These instructions are designed to facilitate the process of making such an edition. They are very much a work in progress, so contact us as questions arise, and with any suggestions for clarification or extension.

Use the library to look up general information about the text you’re working with and its author. This is about educating yourself on the text you’re working with, so you know what is relevant and worth inclusion in your e-text markup and header information.

Find a biographical essay about the author in a reliable library source (try the Literature Online database, Twayne’s author series, or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)--read it, and take notes.

Find a scholarly print edition of the text--the librarians can help! Read the introduction, and take notes about the printing history and other key content and thematic issues.

Look up your text in the English Short Title Catalog, and the Eighteenth-Century Book Tracker. Learn what you can about the bibliographic history of the text from these materials. When was it first printed? How many times has it been printed? Are there complete e-texts available?

**Find a good open-access version of the text using HathiTrust, Google Books, or the Oxford Text Archive. This edition should either be the first published edition or one that is as close as possible to that one. Be sure you can tell us what edition it is, and where you are getting it from! **

Now, using what you know, locate high-quality online or open materials to help you with your individual annotations. Remember your audience and our larger purpose! If you cannot find great open-access journals, encyclopedias, or university library exhibits, you can use research located behind your university paywall; be sure to cite so that the exact page can be found by someone else, later.

Learn what a “stable URL” or "permalink" is, and why they are important.

Find or create page images. These page images should be high quality, and in color when possible. However, it is possible that your page images will be in black and white, and of lower quality. That is alright, but prefer higher quality images so that students can get an accurate sense of the page. Good page images should have the edges of the page visible. Be sure that your page images are the same as your base text. You may need to edit the base text to make the facsimile-text connection accurate.

1. Download the facsimile page images to your computer. Put them in a clearly named folder. Look at the site structure information in the documentation for hints on how to organize your content.
2. Disaggregate and/or rename PDF page images obtained from Google Books or the HathiTrust (or other edition) into separate images in PNG or JPG format, and rename as below.

1. Locate a physical copy of the first edition of the text you’re working with. Often, academic libraries will be willing to share their facsimile page images with you or scan the page images on your behalf, if you ask nicely; but, you can also do this yourself. If doing this yourself,
2. Take high-quality page images (at least 300dpi) of the pages, with all edges of the page visible.
3. Save in the following format: TP.png, 002.png, 003.png, 004.png, 005.png, where TP = title page and 002-005 represent the page numbers of the pages you’re excerpting. If you use unpaginated prefatory content, use lower-case roman numerals. Try in all cases to make the numbering connect to the actual pagination in the text; this will make encoding your page images easier.

Save all page images in a clearly-titled google drive or desktop folder for this project. Examine the site structure documentation for hints on how best to develop your workflow.

If you have a quality etext ready to go, start there. If you need to create a base etext, you'll have to transcribe it yourself. This is best done for short texts or excerpts. Working from the page images, or an existing etext in conjunction with the page images, transcribe, word for word, and exactly as written, the text. Note that this will require you to read your text very carefully, and likely re-read it at least twice!

If you are working with a very long text that already exists in high-quality XML, contact the provider (such as the Oxford Text Archive or the Text Creation Partnership) and request the XML. Edit this XML for LiC parameters and to be sure it connects to the page images. Remember that the goal is accuracy here, so check and double-check!

• Retain original spelling (don’t “modernize” or “correct”, with the exception of long/medial S)
• Modernize the long or medial S (the s that looks like f--turn this into an s)
• Elide hyphenation at line-ends. Add information on the break in your <pb> encoding using brackets to indicate addition: <pb n="4 [page breaks after Mid-]" facs="004.jpg"/>
• Retain capitalization (don’t modernize or correct)
• Elide spacing variations (you’ll find this in title pages, for instance)
• Ignore catchwords: these are the words at the bottom of each page that indicate the first word on the following page.
• Printers ornaments or other images (optional; talk to your faculty or a project administrator)

Otherwise, use TEI P5, level 4 encoding practices. Read more here.

Add the TEI header information, using the model provided here.

 <TEI>
    <teiHeader>
    </teiHeader>
    <text>
       <front>
         [titlepage, preface, dedication, etc]
       </front>
      <body>
        [content of main text]
      </body>
      <back>
        [back content, like advertisements. optional.]
      </back>
    </text>
 </TEI>

• <div type=”xxxx”>Big Divisions (chapters, introductions, prefaces, books, etc</div>
• <p>Paragraphs</p>
• <head>Heading title</head>
• <head type=”title”>Title of book</head>
• <head type="main">Main Heading</head>
• <head type=”sub”>Subheading title</head>
• <pb n=”xxx”/> (If matching to page images, include @facs attribute. Note that this is a "closed element.")
• <hi rend=”italic”>text to italicize</hi>
• <hi rend="indent">Indented line</hi> (Indentation styles increase by 5 spaces each: indent2, indent3, indent4, and so on, up to 10)
• <placeName type="tgn" key="xxxxxxx">London</placeName> (optional)
• <persName type="lcnaf" key="xxxxxxxx">Mary Wollstonecraft</persName>(optional)

Letters will have other elements. See the P5 guidelines.

        <div type="letter" n="1">
           <head type="sub">I.<lb/>
              <hi rend="italic">Lady Susan Vernon to Mr. Vernon.</hi></head>
           <opener>
              <dateline>
                 <placeName>Langford</placeName>, <date>Dec.<lb/></date>
              </dateline>
              <salute>MY DEAR BROTHER,--</salute>
           </opener>
           <p>I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of profiting by your kind invitation….. </p>
           <closer>
              <salute>Your most obliged and affectionate sister,<lb/></salute>
              <signed>S. VERNON.</signed>
           </closer>
        </div>

The annotations in this project have two components in the XML page itself. First, the place you want the annotation to occur--a key word or phrase from the text itself. This will be transformed into a link with a reference code in it, and that reference is the second component. Second, the reference or annotation content. Think of this as a footnote with text.

We try not to make “interpretive” annotations in this project, because everything must be reliable and sourced, rather than your interpretation or opinion only. We are, however, making explanatory annotations. So, if the text alludes to a person, a genre, another text, a date or event, a quotation or a more subtle reference, note it down. These are the things you will be annotating. Then, do your research! Any annotation you make must be supported, using in-text references, as you’ll see below.

This is an open resource, so where possible, find links that are accessible online outside of your university’s paywall. This might be a stable URL to a JSTOR article, the page you cited on Google Books (or HathiTrust, or Internet Archive), an image on Wikimedia Commons. Use reliable sources. Part of determining what a “reliable source” is online is dependent on its citability. Discuss your sources with your instructor and your library representatives. Be able to explain the allusion with one or two sentences, which may include a direct quote, and be able to digitally point to your source(s) using hyperlinks. Be sure your sentences of explanation are clear, grammatically correct, and suitable for an “encyclopedia” in tone and style.

If appropriate, include an image or other media file. Again, these files must be authoritative and citable. Download reliable and open images to a folder on your desktop called “notes.” To embed an image in your annotation, use the formula

Write your annotation, including links and/or images or other files as necessary. You might write your annotation in a working document, and then copy it into your XML file.

See the project documentation for more details.

Work with a peer or a group to check your TEI/XML before submitting it. Be sure all your tags are closed appropriately, embedded appropriately, that “quotation marks” do what they need to do, and that all your sources are correct and appropriate. Double-check your writing--this is meant to be a reliable source, itself, so be sure you are following best practices of academic writing and research, as well as the schema of this project.

Submit your work. Your professor will need a zip file with the XML for the text, titled using the naming conventions detailed in the documentation, and two folders; a folder called pageImages with your page images (if used); and a folder called notes containing any media used in the annotation process--this could include images, but it could also include audio files and so on. These must not be links, but actual downloaded media files.

It is very likely your professor or a project administrator will need to edit and refine your work. That's okay! Do your best, and be in communication with your collaborators at all stages.