Tag: markup

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Blog #4

Blog #4

These past couple weeks, Jacob and I used Oxygen XML editor tools to mark-up our sections of the John Willey transcription. We did this by using tags to give a category for each significant word; for example, we categorized names, emotions, and places. This taught me more about each specific word, whereas with distant reading I was just given a general overview of my text. By paying attention to the categories frequently appearing, and the words within those categories, I gained a better understanding of the context in which Willey lived. One example of this is when studying Willey’s emotions, he mostly had positive, happy words described of how . However, when looking at his health, it was mostly negative terms representing illness and suffering. Putting these two together you can see Willey was dealing with illness, however, maintained a positive outlook on his life to those around him.

Through working on this process with my peers, I learned a bit about how editorial boards are produced. One issue my group and I had was how to maintain consistency of our tags when we each work on different sections. One particular category that we had trouble with was tagging “rolename” vs. “persname.” For example, we had to choose if Lord, God, saviour and Jesus are “persnames” or “rolenames.” However, as Pierazzo states, “if scholars as competent readers agree on something, then by this definition that thing is objective” (466). Therefore, we had to choose this difference on our own, and agreed that Jesus, Savior, and God would be “rolenames” while Jesus would be a “persname.” This made sense to me and my group, because many people have different definitions of who God is, whereas Jesus was known to be a person, just with differing views of his ability. Pierazzo refers to “the process of selection is inevitably an interpretative act” (465). I can definitely relate to that, as me and my group certainly interpreted how we felt our tags would be most useful and make the most sense.

When referring to digital versions of text, Elena Pierazzo proposes the question: “Do they represent an advancement of textual scholarship or just a translation of the same scholarship into a new medium?” (463). Through my first read through the text, I would have said that digital texts were virtually the same as printed. However, with printed texts there is no way to dig deeper into the reading. This allows for scholars to gain the best, most thorough understanding of the text. Specifically, being able to use tools like Oxygen XML editor allowed me to dig deep into the meaning of each specific word. There is no better way to gain a thorough knowledge of a text than specifically analyzing each word read.

file:///Users/tylergeorge/Downloads/HUMN100_Moravian-TEI/HTML/index.html

 

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Blog #4

blog #4

My group has been working on transcribing writing from the 18th century Moravian culture. The process of marking up our transcriptions has been fascinating. As explained by Tanselle, there are inevitably many differences between our transcriptions and the original text. “Some characteristics of the manuscript are irredeemably lost by transcribing it, for instance the variable shape and spacing of handwritten glyphs versus the constant shape of digital fonts or typescripts,” (464). It is valid that no matter what, there will be discrepancies between the texts. Additionally, there are differences between the pages I transcribed and those of my group members. My group of four people transcribed the Samuel Tippett memoir, each transcribing about 4 pages. While my group and I transcribed the same memoir, there are differences in the way we understood and transcribed our pages. Tanaselle explains that, “Obviously a transcription cannot exactly reproduce the relative precision or carelessness with which handwritten letters are formed, or their relative sizes, or the amount of space between words and lines…The process of selection is inevitably an interpretative act: what we choose to represent and what we do not depends either on the particular vision that we have of a particular manuscript or on practical constraints,” (465). Through the process of marking up our transcriptions, we were able to unify our texts logically. 

Through the process of marking up our texts, we have practiced the concept of close reading. Close reading allowed us to understand the text more deeply than we may have otherwise. We picked up on elements of it that we may not have otherwise and were able to then analyze it. However, choosing which parts of the text to tag was difficult. As Michael Hunter explains, “An electronic edition is like an iceberg, with far more data potentially available than is actually visible on the screen, and this is at the same time a great opportunity and a temptation to overdo things. When so many possibilities exist, there is a danger of technological considerations of what can be done taking priority over intellectual considerations of what is actually desirable or necessary in any particular case,” (167). Our group chose which phrases to tag carefully in order to make sure our pages were cohesive and consistent. Tagging emotions was challenging for my group, because Tippett used lots of emotional words such as love and heart throughout the text. We came to the conclusion that it was best for us to tag words that pertained to Tippett himself, in order to curtail the extent of our tagging.

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Blog #4

Blog #4: Markup

We have done different type of reading on the same text and each time, there is more information being extracted. For the markup project, we conducted a very close reading and attempted to identify specific things, such as names, places, dates, events, etc. This project required more collaboration than ones before since we all had to agree on what to tag and what not to. As mentioned by Pierazzo, two readers could have two different interpretations of the same text. To solve this issue, we discussed as a group and formed rules/guidelines using Google Docs on what should and should not be tagged. There were no disputes amongst the group after this. Collaborating on this project was necessary since it helped eliminate the bias of having only one person work on the whole project.

The close reading required for this project allowed me to see more details about Samuel Tippett’s life. An important event in his life is his father’s death when he is young. This helps as readers understand Tippett even more. It also allows us to look at other people who were a part of his life, locations he travelled throughout his life and how he conveyed his emotions. We went more in depth during this project than we did during the initial transcription, as the transcription was just a private edition. This markup publication helps us get closer to the diplomatic edition that was mentioned in the reading, where we try to recreate and digitalize the initial text. It is not yet a perfect diplomatic as it is missing many of the ‘facts’ but it provides much more than the raw texts that comes with just transcribing and we have the option to change the codes of the XML file to make it look similar to the original text.

Going through the text word by word to determine the markup necessary then reading the context of that specific word, phrase or sentence helps us engage with the text. It is not just mindless reading, we actually had to engage with the text to figure out what needed to be tagged and what did not. The most difficult part of this project was deciding what to tag, such as do we mark any of pronouns that refer to God or Jesus as a person name, we decided not to. There were emotions and events that our group deemed too vague to be tagged. After marking up the texts, we compiled it as an HTML file, making it look similar to a webpage.