Encode File-Wide Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions

This documentation outlines how to apply styling across your entire file when your playbook consistently deviates from LEMDO’s default styling for semi-diplomatic transcriptions. If you do not have experience with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), you will likely want to email a LEMDO team member for help.

Rationale

LEMDO has created a default stylesheet for semi-diplomatic transcriptions that should capture the key aspects of composition and mise-en-page of most early modern playbooks. Some playbooks deviate from the basic composition represented by our stylesheet. If your anthology is interested in capturing bibliographical features and your playbook consistently deviates from LEMDO’s semi-diplomatic style, you can use the <tagsDecl> element in the <teiHeader> to add styling across your file.
If your playbook sporadically deviates from our semi-diplomatic style (e.g., if some of the speech prefixes in your playbook are italic but some are in roman type), you will use inline styling rather than file-wide. See Encode Inline Style Using Pre-Formed Values in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions.

Practice: Encode File-Wide Style

The <tagsDecl> element allows you to capture key bibliographical features of your playbook and control how your semi-diplomatic transcription will be rendered. Encode it as a child of your <encodingDesc> , after the <editorialDecl> . For each element that deviates from standard style, you will add a child <rendition> element. Each <rendition> element requires the @selector attribute, which specifies the element that you wish to style, and a @scheme attribute with a value of "css". You will write the CSS style in the text node of the <rendition> element. If you have correctly and consistently encoded the elements in your file, the style from each <rendition> element will apply globally across your file.
To add a <rendition> element, follow these steps:
Identify the elements that are consistently composited in ways that deviate from LEMDO’s default styling.
Add a <tagsDecl> element as a child of the <encodingDesc> element in the TEI header of your file.
Add a <rendition> element as a child of the <tagsDecl> element for each element that consistently deviates from LEMDO’s semi-diplomatic styling.
Put the @selector attribute on the <rendition> element. Add the element that consistently deviates as the value of the @selector attribute.
Put the @scheme attribute with the value "css" on the <rendition> element.
Type the appropriate CSS into the text node of the <rendition> element.
For example:
<teiHeader><!-- … -->
  <encodingDesc><!-- … -->
    <editorialDecl><!-- … --></editorialDecl>
    <tagsDecl>
      <rendition selector="speaker" scheme="css"> font-style: normal; </rendition>
    </tagsDecl>
  </encodingDesc>
</teiHeader>

Special Case: Elements with Attributes

If a consistent bibliographical deviation only occurs in elements with a specific attribute and value on them (for example, if the deviation is in running titles, which are tagged with <fw type="runningTitle">), indicate the attribute and value in the @selector attribute on the <rendition> element. To do this:
Add the <rendition> element as a child of the <tagsDecl> as described in Practice: Encode File-Wide Style.
Put the @selector attribute on the <rendition> element. The value of @selector should follow this format: <rendition selector="element[attribute='value']">.
Put the @scheme attribute with the value "css" on the <rendition> element.
Type the appropriate CSS into the text node of the <rendition> element.
For example:
<teiHeader><!-- … -->
  <encodingDesc><!-- … -->
    <tagsDecl>
      <rendition selector="fw[type='runningTitle']" scheme="css"> letter-spacing: 0.5em; </rendition>
    </tagsDecl>
  </encodingDesc>
</teiHeader>

CSS Resources

If you would like support in adding style using the <tagsDecl> element, please email a member of the LEMDO Team to discuss solutions.

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.

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 Encode File-Wide Style in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions
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.