• Tutorials
  • 0. Introduction to Text Encoding and the TEI
  • 1. Common Structure and Elements
  • 2. The TEI header
  • 3. Prose
  • 4. Poetry
  • 5. Drama
  • 6. Primary Sources
  • 7. Critical Editing
  • 8. Customising TEI, ODD, Roma
• Examples
  • 0. Introduction to Text Encoding and the TEI
  • 1. Common Structure and Elements
  • 2. The TEI header
  • 3. Prose
  • 4. Poetry
  • 5. Drama
  • 6. Primary Sources
  • 7. Critical Editing
  • 8. Customising TEI, ODD, Roma
• Tests
  • 0. Introduction to Text Encoding and the TEI
  • 1. Common Structure and Elements
  • 2. The TEI header
  • 3. Prose
  • 4. Poetry
  • 5. Drama
  • 6. Primary Sources
  • 7. Critical Editing
  • 8. Customising TEI, ODD, Roma
• Exercises
  • 0. Introduction to Text Encoding and the TEI
  • 1. Common Structure and Elements
  • 2. The TEI header
  • 3. Prose
  • 4. Poetry
  • 5. Drama
  • 6. Primary Sources
  • 7. Critical Editing
  • 8. Customising TEI, ODD, Roma
• Tools
  • 1. TEI validator
  • 2. XML toolkit
• About

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8. Summary #

Computers can only deal with explicit data. The function of markup is to represent textual material into digital form through the explicating act of text-encoding. Descriptive markup reveals what the encoder thinks to be implicit or hidden aspects of a text, and is thus an interpretive medium which often documents scholarly research next to structural information about the text. In order for this research to be exchangeable, analyzable, re-usable, and preservable, texts in the field of the humanities should be encoded according to a standard which defines a common vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, whilst leaving the implementation of the standard up to the encoder. A result of communal efforts among computing humanists, the Text Encoding Initiative documents such a standard in the TEI Guidelines. These guidelines are fully adaptable and customisable to one’s specific project whilst enhancing this project’s compatibility with other projects employing the TEI. Since over two decades, the TEI has been used extensively in projects from different disciplines, fields, and subjects internationally. The ongoing engagements of a broad user community through the organization of the TEI Consortium consolidates the importance of the text encoding standard and informs its continuous development and maintenance.

Bibliography

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• Barnard, David T., Ron Hayter, Maria Karababa, George M. Logan, and John McFadden 1988. “SGML-Based Markup for Literary Texts: Two Problems and Some Solutions.” Computers and the Humanities 22 (4): 265–276.
• Berkowitz, Luci, Karl A. Squitier, and William H. A. Johnson. 1986. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Canon of Greek Authors and Works. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Bray, Tim, Jean Paoli, and C. M. Sperberg-McQueen. Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0. W3C Recommendation 10-February-1998. https://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210 (accessed September 2008).
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• Burnard, Lou, and C. M. Sperberg-McQueen. 2006. “TEI Lite: Encoding for Interchange: an introduction to the TEI Revised for TEI P5 release.” February 2006 https://tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-exemplars/html/tei_lite.doc.html.
• DeRose, Steven J. 1999. “XML and the TEI.” Computers and the Humanities 33 (1–2): 11–30.
• Goldfarb, Charles F. 1990. The SGML Handbook. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Hockey, Susan 1980. Oxford Concordance Program Users’ Manual. Oxford: Oxford University Computing Service.
• Ide, Nancy M., and C. M. Sperberg-McQueen. 1988. “Development of a Standard for Encoding Literary and Linguistic Materials.” In Cologne Computer Conference 1988. Uses of the Computer in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Volume of Abstracts. Cologne, Germany, Sept 7–10 1988, p. E.6-3-4.
• ———. 1995. “The TEI: History, Goals, and Future.” Computers and the Humanities 29 (1): 5–15.
• Kay, Martin 1967. “Standards for Encoding Data in a Natural Language.” Computers and the Humanities, 1 (5): 170–177.
• Lancashire, Ian, John Bradley, Willard McCarty, Michael Stairs, and Terence Russon Woolridge. 1996 Using TACT with Electronic Texts. New York: Modern Language Association of America.
• Russel, D. B. 1967. COCOA: A Word Count and Concordance Generator for Atlas. Chilton: Atlas Computer Laboratory.
• Sperberg-McQueen, C. M. 1991. “Text in the Electronic Age: Textual Study and Text Encoding with examples from Medieval Texts.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 6 (1): 34–46. 10.1093/llc/6.1.34.
• Sperberg-McQueen, C. M., and Lou Burnard (eds.). 1990. TEI P1: Guidelines for the Encoding and Interchange of Machine Readable Texts. Chicago/Oxford: ACH-ALLC-ACL Text Encoding Initiative. https://tei-c.org/Vault/Vault-GL.html (accessed October 2008).
• ———. 1993. TEI P2 Guidelines for the Encoding and Interchange of Machine Readable Texts Draft P2 (published serially 1992–1993); Draft Version 2 of April 1993: 19 chapters. https://tei-c.org/Vault/Vault-GL.html (accessed October 2008).
• ———. 1994. Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. TEI P3. Oxford, Providence, Charlottesville, Bergen: Text Encoding Initiative.
• ———. 1999. Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. TEI P3. Revised reprint. Oxford, Providence, Charlottesville, Bergen: Text Encoding Initiative.
• ———. 2002. TEI P4: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. XML-compatible edition. XML conversion by Syd Bauman, Lou Burnard, Steven DeRose, and Sebastian Rahtz. Oxford, Providence, Charlottesville, Bergen: Text Encoding Initiative Consortium. https://tei-c.org/Vault/P4/doc/html/ (accessed October 2008).
• TEI Consortium. 2007. TEI P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Oxford, Providence, Charlottesville, Nancy: TEI Consortium. https://tei-c.org/Vault/P5/1.0.0/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ (accessed October 2008).