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First Pass: Preparing a basic text for encoding.

• Copy text from EEBO-TCP print view (this presupposes we have permission to use their transcription -- we're actually using their .xml files for Stow).
• Convert short s to long s (lower case only). (Convert long s before spaces, periods, and commas back to short s.)
• Change the colour of italicized text (for your convenience and the encoder’s convenience). You may want to convert all the text to black and then the italicized text back to a colour once you have finished all your corrections.
• Add in signature numbers as milestones (a way for US to navigate through the book)
• Record what is in the headline (usually the running title but sometimes also a page number) and direction lines (signature number on signed leaves and catchword). EEBO-TCP does not display this info.
• Proofread. Correct errors in EEBO-TCP’s transcription. Correct any long s errors introduced by us. Check punctuation carefully (is it really italicized after names?). Infer gaps in the transcription if you can but don’t make it up if you can’t. If you make an educated editorial guess, put the conjectural characters within editorial square brackets. The microfilms in the library are often clearer.

Second Pass (depends on time and the instructions from JJ).

If you are putting the information into comment bubbles:

• Identify the unique XML:id for all the streets and sites.
• Put notes about queries, unresolved ids, and gaps in database (e.g., people and places who aren't there) into comments. Put a reminder in Flow in Janelle's TTD folder.

If you are printing out the file, highlighting locations, people, bibl items, and other features you want to flag for the encoder:

• Print out file (or send it to Janelle to print out).
• Use pink for bibl tags, yellow for locations, purple for people, green for anything that encoders will need to note (foreign words, book/article titles).
• Look up unique XML:ids and write them on the print-out. If an XML:id is recurrent, you don't need to write it every time unless the context requires you to give it again.

Finally...

• Write a note about the structure of the document. Should we use the simple template (and for most topics and transcriptions we will), the location template, or the complex template? To create sections and subsections and sub-sub-sections, we use the div element. You'll have to think about the structure of the document. Does it consist of sections already? Do we need to divide it into sections? Is there a piece of text that will serve as the header for the section? E.g., The Carriers Cosmographie has letters for section headers, but we also had to make up some editorial section headers. See Basic Document Structure for information. You may need to work out these suggestions by discussing them with the encoders and/or JJ.
• Send file back to JJ.
• When JJ gives the okay, tell the encoders to go ahead. Use Flow to tell them the full name of the file in the SVN working_files folder.

JJ, MS, and CB have started to use the title level="a" markup for articles, both in the BIBL1.xml file and in the markup of pages where an article title appears.

Current rendering code puts quotation marks around article titles. We note, however, that MLA style and MoEML house style call for commas and periods to be INSIDE quotation marks, even if they are not part of the quotation. Colons, semi-colons, exclamation marks, and question marks remain outside the quotation marks.

The rendering code we need will pull a following period or comma into the quotes but leave a following colon, semi-colon, or question mark outside the quotes.

If the question mark is part of the title, then it will be inside the title tag anyway and will be automatically included inside the quotation marks.

Priority: Sometime this summer. We can leave with a few stray commas until MH has time to write the code.

Right now, the titles of articles are not showing up in our handy list of all XML:ids used in the site. Let's try adding the title level="a" tag to a couple of articles, then checking out what displays on http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/ids.htm. I've asked MS to undertake this task next week. If titles do not show up, we'll ask MH to adjust the programming.

Added a new folder to the Subversion repository called "working_files." This folder is where we can store spreadsheets, workbooks, Word files, and OpenOffice files that we are sharing and storing in the process of preparing articles and texts for the site.

Important! File names must not contain spaces or punctuation.

Examples of files we might store here:

• Sarah's transcriptions if she's not typing directly into an .xml file
• Janelle's master Excel workbook of all the essays, transcriptions, and editions that have been assigned. This workbook tracks the progress of each contribution from Janelle's initial contact with the contributor to the final proofing of the page once it's been encoded and published. Normally, only Janelle will make updates to this file, but it's available for any team member to see.