Alice.html and the corresponding xml, css, and image files were created as part of a mini TEI project for Info 6620: Electronic Text Design
Written in the 19th century, the beloved tale of a young girl’s adventures in a far off land has engaged reader’s imaginations for generations and is the focus of this assignment.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, penned by Lewis Carroll, provides a number of unique characteristics to be explored through XML mark up.
There are two poems which open the story; an unnamed poem, and a second entitled, Christmas-Greetings. These poems provide an interesting challenge and opportunity for XML. First, the poem is divided into several stanzas; second, indenting occurs on every second line; third, footnotes are provided for historical context.
Similar to the poems, the main body of text has several footnotes to identify and relate unique historical facts about the overall work. The story is broken into small chapters and within each chapter there is a heavily emphasis on dialogue which transforms well with XML. Further, there are a number of formatting issues including italicization, other typographical features. As suggested by the TEI Boilerplate blog, XML is a type of coding language which is used for describing and analyzing texts (TEI Boilerplate). While XML may provide a much richer form of customizing the storage of data, it is also a complex language in comparison to CSS.
My main goal was to provide markup of a document which would be readily accessible, readable and provide an organized structure of the data held within the document. I felt that it was important to create an accurate representation of the online version of the text. As such I maintained many of the text formatting elements from the monograph. Finally, I wanted to create a structure with defined sections to make navigation easy for the user and provide an overall structure which links all of its parts.
- Header: indicates the content and purpose of the TEI project
- Footnotes: four footnotes were included as part of the original text
- Elements: Used a number of unique elements and meta-tags to organize all relevant information about the document, as well as the information contained within the document
- Transform scenario: modification of 14 parameters
- CSS Style sheet: created to enhance the readability and design