LEMDO: Introduction to Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions (Print)

Introduction to Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions (Print)

Whether or not an edition includes a transcription (semi-diplomatic text) of a single copy of an early printed or manuscript text is an anthology-level decision. If an anthology decides to include transcriptions, LEMDO strongly recommends that the anthology prescribe a semi-diplomatic transcription. Given the increasing availability of open-access digital surrogates of copies of early publications, as well as LEMDO’s ability to host those surrogates and embed links from the semi-diplomatic transcription to those surrogates, anthologies need to think carefully about what users most need. LEMDO’s position is that most users of a digital transcription will be far more interested in the transcription than in the mise-en-page of the book, which will always be better understood by looking at the digital surrogate or, better yet, the material object itself.

While this chapter is focused on printed playbooks, much of the encoding and styling advice will also apply to manuscript playbooks.

Note that LEMDO is moving away from the legacy term old-spelling and using the term semi-diplomatic transcription instead.

¶ Contents

Semi-Diplomatic Options and Prohibitions: Read about the required and optional tagging.

Categories: Learn about the


                                             <catDesc>

elements you need to add to the


                                             <teiHeader>

of a transcription.

Encode Page Beginnings: Learn how to capture page beginnings in your encoding.

Encode Columns: Learn how to indicate the beginning of columns on early modern pages in your encoding.

Introduction to Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn about CSS and options to encode style.

Default Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Read about the basic styling that you can expect to see applied to your semi-diplomatic transcription.

Encode File-Wide Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to apply styling across your semi-diplomatic transcription.

Encode Inline Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to encode inline style using the


                                          @rendition

and


                                          @style

attributes.

Encode Advanced Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Read about how you may choose to capture advanced styling such as long braces.

Encode Title Page of Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to encode the title page of your text.

Encode Front Matter in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to encode epistles, dedicatory poems, and other preliminary paratextual matter.

Encode Back Matter in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to encode paratextual matter that follows the play.

Encode Literary Divisions in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to encode act and scene headers.

Encode Cast Lists in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Read about LEMDOʼs practice for encoding cast lists in semi-diplomatic transcriptions.

Encode Speeches in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to encode speeches in your semi-diplomatic transcription, including information on encoding speeches without speech prefixes.

Encode Stage Directions in Semi-Diplomatic Texts: Learn to encode and categorize stage directions.

Encode Lineation of Semi-Diplomatic Texts: Learn how to encode and number compositorial lines.

Encode Hungwords in Semi-Diplomatic Texts: Read about how to encode hungwords.

Encode White Space in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to capture vertical and horizontal white spaces.

Introduction to Signature Marks: Learn what signature marks are and access additional resources explaining the format of early modern books.

Encode Forme Works in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to encode catchwords, page numbers, running titles, and signature marks.

Encode Corrections in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to encode compositorial errors in early modern playbooks and your corrections of them.

Encode Rotated Letters in Semi-Diplomatic Texts: Learn how to capture rotated letters in your encoding.

Encode Abbreviations in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Learn how to encode abbreviations in early modern playbooks and your expansions of those words.

Encode Press Variants: Learn how to capture uncorrected and corrected states of your playbook.

Encode Supplied Text in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Read about when and how to encode supplied materials in your semi-diplomatic transcription.

Encode Glyphs and Ligatures in Semi-Diplomatic Texts: Learn how to encode glyphs and ligatures.

Template for Semi-Diplomatic Transcription of a Quarto Playbook: Body

Prosopography

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.

Martin Holmes

Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVicʼs 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

Project manager 2022–present. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA in History and Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. During their degree, they worked as a teaching assistant with the University of Victoriaʼs Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America.

Rylyn Christensen

Rylyn Christensen is an English major at the University of Victoria.

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 Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions (Print)
Type of text	Documentation
Short title
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.