Introduction to Modernized Texts
The documentation in this chapter is for encoders and editors encoding their modernized
texts.
Learning Outcomes
By the time you have worked through every section of this chapter, you will:
Know how to encode the structure of your modernized texts using elements for acts,
scenes, speeches, stage directions, and lines.
Be able to create your character list with notes on characters.
Understand how your encoding is used by LEMDO’s processing to create your edition’s
table of contents and to create links to discrete units in your modernized texts.
Know how to encode verse, including verse letters and songs.
Be familiar with LEMDO’s list of values allowed on the
@type attribute on stage directions.Understand how LEMDO will render your stage directions.
Modernization Workflow
The LEMDO team will provide you with an XML template for your modernized text once
your semi-diplomatic transcription is completed.1 This template will use the text of your semi-diplomatic transcription, but replace
the encoding with the basic TEI tagging for modernized texts. In cases where there
is more than one possible copy-text and therefore more than one semi-diplomatic transcription,
consult with your anthology lead about the appropriate starting point for your modernized
text. If you choose to do copy-text editions of multiple early texts, we will provide
you with all the templates you need, within reason.
The modernized text is where you will add your editorial act and scene divisions,
distinguish prose from verse, add editorial stage directions, and assign speeches
to speakers. Your character list is embedded in the
<teiHeader>
of the modernized text file.Your collation and annotations are pinned to this file. You will want to prepare your
collation before you emend the text.2 You will likely create annotations as you modernize and/or after you have finished
tagging prose, verse, and literary divisions.
Once you have completed your collation, you will make any emendations (recording in
your collation file all substantive changes that are unique to you or attributable
to earlier editors). You will usually want to make any relineations while you emend.
Then you modernize the spelling and punctuation of the text; during the process of
modernization, you may discover additional words/phrases that you wish to collate.
The purpose of tagging in the modernized text is to encode editorial decisions. While
many of the TEI tags will be in place, you should confirm LEMDO’s markup to make sure
it communicates your intention, both in its final rendering for human readers and
in precision for machine-aided analysis.
Contents
| Section | Description |
Lineation in Modernized Texts |
Learn about how to encode lineation in your modernized text, including how to distinguish between verse and prose speeches |
Encode Character Lists in Modernized Texts |
Learn how to encode your character list |
Encode Speakers in Modernized Texts |
Learn about LEMDO’s rules and practice for encoding speakers |
Literary Divisions in Modernized Texts: Acts, Scenes, and Speeches |
Learn about countable literary divisions in LEMDO’s modernized texts |
Number Acts and Scenes |
Learn how to number acts and scenes in your modernized text |
Number Speeches |
Learn how to number speeches in your modernized text |
Number Prologues, Epilogues, and Intra-Texts |
Learn about encoding text that is outside of the acts in your modernized text such as prologues and choruses |
Encode Letters and Songs in Modernized Texts |
Learn how to encode letters and songs in your modernized text |
Encode Stage Directions in Modernized Texts |
Learn how to encode stage directions in your modernized text, including encoding supplied stage directions |
Identify Stage Direction Types |
Learn when to use which value for different types of stage directions |
Number Stage Directions |
Learn how to give a unique
@xml:id to each stage direction, for linking and citation purposes |
Stage Direction Rendering in Modernized Texts |
Learn about how LEMDO renders stage directions and how your encoding impacts the ultimate appearance of your stage directions |
Appendix: Countable Units |
Learn about the basic patterns of countable units in modernized texts |
Notes
1.In many cases, LEMDO will have prepared a semi-diplomatic transcription for you, and
your job will be to proofread it carefully.↑
2.The normal workflow is: collation, then emendation, then modernization.↑
Prosopography
Isabella Seales
Isabella Seales is a fourth year undergraduate completing her Bachelor of Arts in
English at the University of Victoria. She has a special interest in Renaissance and
Metaphysical Literature. She is assisting Dr. Jenstad with the MoEML Mayoral Shows
anthology as part of the Undergraduate Student Research Award program.
Janelle Jenstad
Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director
of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.
Joey Takeda
Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020
after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.
Mahayla Galliford
Project manager, 2025-present; research assistant, 2021-present. Mahayla Galliford
(she/her) graduated with a BA (Hons with distinction) from the University of Victoria
in 2024. Mahayla’s undergraduate research explored early modern stage directions and
civic water pageantry. Mahayla continues her studies through UVic’s English MA program
and her SSHRC-funded thesis project focuses on editing and encoding girls’ manuscripts,
specifically Lady Rachel Fane’s dramatic entertainments, in collaboration with LEMDO.
Martin Holmes
Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVic’s Humanities Computing and Media
Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities
projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the
Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020.
He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.
Navarra Houldin
Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual
remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major
in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary
research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They
are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice
Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.
Nicole Vatcher
Technical Documentation Writer, 2020–2022. Nicole Vatcher completed her BA (Hons.)
in English at the University of Victoria in 2021. Her primary research focus was women’s
writing in the modernist period.
Sam Seaberg
Samuel Seaberg, a University of Victoria English undergrad, enjoys riding his bike.
During the summer of 2025, he began working with LEMDO as a recipient of the Valerie
Kuehne Undergraduate Research Award (VKURA). Unfortunately, due to his summer being
spent primarily in working to establish an edition of Thomas Heywood’s If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, Part 2 and consequently working out how to represent multi-text works in a digital space,
his bike has suffered severely of sheltered seclusion from the sun.
Tracey El Hajj
Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD
from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science
and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched
Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on
Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life.Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.
Orgography
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
Metadata
| Authority title | Introduction to Modernized Texts |
| Type of text | Documentation |
| Publisher | University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
| Series | Linked Early Modern Drama Online |
| Source |
TEI Customization created by Martin Holmes, Joey Takeda, and Janelle Jenstad; documentation written by members of the LEMDO Team
|
| Editorial declaration | n/a |
| Edition | Released with Linked Early Modern Drama Online 1.0 |
| Encoding description | Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines |
| Document status | prgGenerated |
| Funder(s) | Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada |
| License/availability |
This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following
conditions: (1) credit must be given to the author and LEMDO in any subsequent use
of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except
in quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial
uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor and LEMDO.
This license allows for pedagogical use of the documentation in the classroom.
|