Default Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions

LEMDO has developed a default stylesheet by looking at many playbooks, consulting Claire M. L. Bourne’s Typographies of Performance in Early Modern England, and using the measurements she generously shared with us. This stylesheet is applied to all documents with the category "letSemiDiplomatic".

Rationale

Generally speaking, printed playbooks are composited and laid out similarly on the printed page. Our default stylesheet captures most key features of this composition and allows for a nice on-screen approximation of an early modern book. Although it typically gives appropriate base styling for the layout of most playbooks, you will usually use it in conjunction with more granular styling, including file-wide styling in your <tagsDecl> element and inline styling done using the @style and @rendition attributes.
Because our default styling is written in a different file from your semi-diplomatic transcription, it is important that you update your <encodingDesc> and <editorialDecl> elements in your semi-diplomatic file. See Practice: Update Your Encoding Description for more information.

Practice: Use Default Style

LEMDO’s default stylesheet will be applied to your semi-diplomatic transcription at rendering time. It will likely generally capture the composition and mise-en-page of your playbook, though you will still need to describe more specific style such as stage direction placement using file-wide or inline styling mechanisms. In most cases, our default stylesheet will make your text readable and usable, but it will not capture all of the bibliographical details of your specific playbook.
Our default stylesheet relies on truthful and correct encoding in your semi-diplomatic transcription. If the HTML output does not look right, check your encoding. For example, if a line is not beginning where it should, check that you have put the <lb> element in the correct place.
If your playbook has deviations from most other playbooks and your anthology is interested in capturing mise-en-page, this default styling will still apply to your semi-diplomatic transcription at rendering time. You can apply additional styling to capture any deviations. See Encode File-Wide Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions and Encode Inline Style Using Pre-Formed Values in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions.

Table of Default Renditions

Playbook Feature Element Styling
Title page <titlePage> Renders centered
Speech prefixes <speaker> Renders italic, indented, and on the same line as the following speech with one space between the speech prefix and following speech
Speech <ab> as a child of <sp> On the same line as the preceding speech prefix
Two speeches on the same line <sp> followed by an <sp> with no <lb> between the two Renders with the second speech to the right; requires inline styling using the <style> element if text overlaps; see Encode Inline Style Using Pre-Formed Values in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions
Line break <lb> Creates a new line; no new lines will render without an <lb> element
Page beginning <pb> Renders as a solid horizontal line with one line of padding on either side
Column beginning <cb> Renders as a dotted horizontal line with one line of padding on either side
Figures <figure> Renders centered
Headings and other labels <label> Renders centered
Running Titles <fw type="runningTitle"> Renders centered in roman type
Signature Marks <fw type="sig"> Renders centered and letterspaced
Catchwords <fw type="catch"> Renders aligned right
Horizontal White Space <space dim="horizontal" unit="char" quantity="n"> Renders with horizontal space equal to the number of ems in the @quantity attribute
Vertical White Space <space dim="vertical" unit="line" quantity="n"> Renders with vertical space equal to the number of lines in the @quantity attribute
All Stage Directions <stage> Renders italic
Marginal Stage Directions <stage place="plc-right-margin"> and <stage place="plc-left-margin"> Renders in the right margin
Hungwords: Turnover <seg type="turnover"> Must be styled using the @style attribute; see Encode Inline Style Using Pre-Formed Values in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions
Hungwords: Turnunder <seg type="turnunder"> Must be styled using the @style attribute; see Encode Inline Style Using Pre-Formed Values in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions
Editorial corrections <supplied> Renders in square brackets
Abbreviations <abbr> and <expan> as children of <choice> Renders the text node of <abbr> with mouseover displaying Expansion: text node of <expan> .
Minor compositorial errors <sic> and <corr> as children of <choice> Renders the text node of <sic> with mouseover displaying the text node of <corr>
Name of author <signed> Must be styled using file-wide styling; see Encode File-Wide Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions
Trailers <trailer> Renders centered
Damaged text <gap reason="damage"> Renders as a grey box with the text damage in it
Illegible text <gap reason="illegible"> Renders as the characters <…>

Table of Default Styling for the @place Attribute

You will encode @place attributes for all <stage> elements excluding hungwords, which then triggers styling from our semi-diplomatic stylesheet. For information on what values to use, see Placement Taxonomy.
Placement @place Value Styling
Right "plc-right" Renders aligned right
Right margin "plc-right-margin" Renders in the right margin
Right inline "plc-right" Renders aligned right
Right adjacent "plc-right-adjacent" Renders aligned right beside other text
Right top "plc-right-top" Renders aligned right
Right bottom "plc-right-bottom" Renders aligned right
Left "plc-left" Renders aligned left
Left margin "plc-left-margin" Renders in the right margin
Left inline "plc-left-inline" Renders aligned left
Left top "plc-left-top" Renders aligned left
Left bottom "plc-left-bottom" Renders aligned left
Centre "plc-centre" Renders centered
Centre top "plc-centre-top" Renders centered
Centre bottom "plc-centre-bottom" Renders centered
Bottom "plc-bottom" No default styling
Top "plc-top" No default styling

Special Case: Renditions for Marginal Stage Directions

Stage directions tagged as being in the margin will render in the right margin regardless of whether the @place attribute on <stage> has the value "plc-right-margin" or "plc-left-margin".
LEMDO is not interested in replicating the exact mise-en-page of early modern books. We provide facsimiles for those who are interested in the exact layout of source playbooks. Additionally, the online environment is fundamentally different from early modern printed books—we do not have the same need as early modern compositors to change which side marginal stage directions appear on based on whether a page is recto or verso as we do not have recto and verso pages.
You will still truthfully capture which side of the page marginal stage directions appear on using the value of the @place attribute. For more information on capturing the placement of stage directions in semi-diplomatic transcriptions, see Practice: Encode Placement.

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.

Rowan Grayson

Rowan is a BA and MA student in English and Latin American Studies at UNC Charlotte working on his master’s thesis, a comparative study of the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race in Brazilian and Dominican science fiction novels. He was a Mitacs Research Intern with LEMDO at UVic in 2023.

Rylyn Christensen

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

Sofia Spiteri

Sofia Spiteri is currently completing her Bachelor of Arts in History at the University of Victoria. During the summer of 2023, she had the opportunity to work with LEMDO as a recipient of the Valerie Kuehne Undergraduate Research Award (VKURA). Her work with LEMDO primarily includes semi-diplomatic transcriptions for The Winter’s Tale and Mucedorus.

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.

Bibliography

Bourne, Claire M.L. Typographies of Performance in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

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.

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