Processing Pointers, Links, and References
Processing of References
LEMDO has thousands of
<ref>
elements that point to editions, anthologies, components therein, and to resources
outside LEMDO. These are all processed into HTML hyperlinks for the static site.Our processing does not do anything with
<ref>
elements in PDFs. Any pointing you do inside a file with the
<ref>
element will result in nothing in a PDF.The
<ref>
and
<ptr>
elements can co-exist because they are pointing to xml:ids, but only the
<ptr>
element can be converted to strings at build time in LaTeX.Processing of Pointers
We would like to have a canonically-structured textual reference in the output. In
the digital edition, we want the A.S.Sp. system (e.g., 5.1.2) plus a precise hyperlink.
In the print edition, we want the A.S.L reference system (e.g., 2.3.101). We do not
want to have the author of the critical text write a literal 2.3.101 into their document,
because lineation may change as the text is edited, but we do want a critical introduction
to be able to contain A.S.L citations when it is printed. The actual text in the parenthetical
citation must be generated at build time.
LEMDO therefore has two different processing chains for pointers: one for the digital
edition and one for the print edition (a camera-ready PDF that can be downloaded or
printed through print-on-demand services).
For online publication, we generate a parenthetical citation that gives LEMDO’s canonical
reference system (A.S.Sp.). Clicking on the citation takes one directly to the part
of the speech being cited.
For the PDF, we generate a parenthetical citation that gives A.S.L (act, scene, line
number) using the line numbers generated for the PDF at the time we make the PDF.
For example, an editor might use a
<ptr>
element in their critical introduction to point to anchors in the middle of a long
speech in their modernized text. In the processing for the PDF, LEMDO will calculate
and supply the A.S.L, so that reader may find the exact line(s) being cited in the
generated parenthetical citation. For the online version, the parenthetical citation
will be A.S.Sp. but the hyperlink on the citation will go directly to the target point
in the speech.Inter-text Links
If editors are writing a critical introduction to Othello, they will naturally want to provide links to other relevant texts in the LEMDO collection.
This is normally done using the
<ref>
element, like this:
<p>
<!-- ... -->
(see <title level="m">
<ref target="doc:emdTitus_M">Titus Andronicus</ref>
</title>) <!-- ... --></p>
This points to the modern edition of Titus by its document id. However, if you want to point to a specific location in that
text, things become more complicated, in the sense that although you may point at
an ID in that text, it’s not clear what textual reference you should provide. For
example, if you call it <!-- ... -->
(see <title level="m">
<ref target="doc:emdTitus_M">Titus Andronicus</ref>
</title>) <!-- ... --></p>
2.5.35(Act 2, Scene 5, Line 35), and then the editor of Titus determines that there are two missing lines at the beginning of the scene, and adds them in, the text inside your
<ref>
element is now misleading. The following sections provide two solutions to this problem,
one used within a specific edition directory
, and one used more generally.Citing Published Texts
One approach to the mutability of online texts produced both within and outside LEMDO
is to choose a specific print edition of source texts (such as the New Oxford Shakespeare) to which all references can point. This has the obvious disadvantage that such a
pointer cannot be made into any kind of link, but links are fragile anyway, and this
approach also fits with the numerous citations of critical print texts which occur
throughout critical material.
Pointing within Edition Directories
We have seen above that certain types of citation between texts are not very robust,
because texts are (for the forseeable future, anyway) steadily evolving, and even
our principles for lineation and our citation styles are not absolutely finalized.
However, when you’re editing critical material that will be bundled with an edition
of a text in (for example) a print volume, you need to be able to point into the text,
just as you need to be able to attach annotations to specific points in the text.
There are two scenarios in which we do this:
Pinning Annotations
Annotations are
<note>
elements (documented in detail in Writing Annotations) which live in separate files outside the plays to which they refer. At build time,
annotations may be rendered as links with popups, or as footnotes in a print edition.Annotations are
pinnedto a location in the text using a system of anchors and pointers which is documented in Writing Annotations.
Local Pointers
Although we know that pointing between electronic texts which are in constant development
is inherently fragile, there are situations in which we need to be able to create
a canonically-formatted text reference in a critical text to a specific point in the
text which is being discussed. If these texts are in the same edition directory, then
we know they will be built at the same time, and therefore any output created will
be consistent across that build.
This enables us to solve the particular problem noted above, where we would like to
have a canonically-structured textual reference such as
2.3.45appearing in the critical text, and this is particularly important for the print texts that we are going to publish. We don’t want to have the author of the critical text write a literal
2.3.45into their document, because lineation may change as the text is edited, but we do want a critical introduction to be able to contain such text when it is printed; therefore the actual text must be generated at build time. We do this using a
<ptr>
element with
@type="localCit":
<div><!-- In the critical text: -->
<p><!-- ... --> the king addresses the <quote>noble English</quote> (<ptr type="localCit" target="doc:emdH5_FM.xml#emdH5_FM_anc_2000"/>) separately <!-- ... --></p>
<!-- In the play text: -->
<l>Oh, <anchor xml:id="emdH5_FM_anc_2000"/>noble English,</l>
</div>
At build time, this will be expanded to (for example) <p><!-- ... --> the king addresses the <quote>noble English</quote> (<ptr type="localCit" target="doc:emdH5_FM.xml#emdH5_FM_anc_2000"/>) separately <!-- ... --></p>
<!-- In the play text: -->
<l>Oh, <anchor xml:id="emdH5_FM_anc_2000"/>noble English,</l>
</div>
(1.2.111).You will notice that we use the same mechanism for creating a point in the text that can be addressed as we do for annotations: we insert an anchor (see Writing Annotations for instructions on how to do that). To specify a range, include pointers to two anchors with a space between them:
<ptr type="localCit" target="doc:emdH5_FM.xml#emdH5_FM_anc_2000 doc:emdH5_FM.xml#emdH5_FM_anc_2001"/>
If you’re pointing at an entire line, speech, scene or act, then there’s no need to
insert two anchors. You can instead add an
@xml:id to the target element (
<l>
,
<sp>
, or
<div>
, if there isn’t one there already, and point to that instead. To create a new
@xml:id, the simplest way is to insert an anchor element in the usual way, then take its
@xml:id, which is guaranteed to be unique, and use that, discarding the rest of the
<anchor>
.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.
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.
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
OED: The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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 | Processing Pointers, Links, and References |
| 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.
|