Number Speeches

Rationale

Lineation is not stable in a digital edition. Prose wraps dynamically and changes from one device to another and from one window size to another. The smallest organizational and citational unit of a LEMDO digital play edition is therefore the act, scene, and speech for plays with acts and scenes (referred to in documentation as A.S.Sp.) or simply the scene and speech for plays with scenes only (S.Sp. in documentation).

Introduction

Each speech must be wrapped in an <sp> element containing a @who attribute and an @xml:id attribute. For information on encoding the @who attribute, see Encode Speakers in Modernized Texts. We use the value of the @xml:id attribute to number speeches, as described in this documentation.
The value of the @xml:id attribute must be carefully constructed to include the values of the parent act and scene <div> elements, plus the sequential number of the speech. The pattern for the value is "emdABBR_M_a1_s1_sp1" where "emdABBR_M" is the name of the file, "_a1" is inherited from act one, "_s1" is inherited from scene 1, and "_sp1" is the number of the speech. The first speech in the scene is always one.
In a play with running scenes , the pattern for the value of the @xml:id is emdABBR_M_s1_sp1.
Although you may number your speeches manually, we have written an XSLT to number them. Our XSLT will ensure that they are quickly and correctly numbered.

Practice: Number Speeches Using an XSLT

The simplest and quickest way to number speeches in your modernized text is to use our XSLT. We recommend running this transformation after you have finalized the speeches in your edition in case you move any speeches during modernization. If you do need to renumber speeches after running the XSLT, you can remove the speech numbering using a regular expression and simply run the numbering XSLT again.
To run the XSLT to number speeches, follow the instructions outlined in Transformations. You will use the transformation called LEMDO: Add ids to speeches in modernized texts.

Practice: Number Speeches Manually

If you decide to number your speeches manually, follow these steps:
Add an @xml:id attribute to your <sp> element.
Give the @xml:id attribute a value formatted as the xml:id of the scene that it is in followed by "_sp" and then the number of the speech. You must start numbering speeches at "sp1" for each scene, and speeches must be numbered consecutively.
Our Schematron will prompt you if you skip a number in the sequence. Our Schema will also catch any repeated values when you validate your file.
Remember that your speech numbers inherit the xml:id of the containing <div> . If you are privileging act-scenes , then the xml:id of the first speech in 1.1 will be (in the case of Timon) "emdTim_M_a1_s1_sp1". If you are privileging running scenes , then the xml:id of the first speech in Sc. 1 will be "emdTim_M_s1_sp1".

Examples

In this example, the play is divided into acts and scenes:
<div type="act" n="1" xml:id="emdMV_M_a1">
  <div type="scene" n="1" xml:id="emdMV_M_a1_s1">
    <sp who="#emdMV_M_Antonio" xml:id="emdMV_M_a1_s1_sp1">
      <speaker>Antonio</speaker>
      <l>In sooth I know not why I am so sad.</l>
      <!-- Rest of the speech goes here. -->
    </sp>
  </div>
</div>
The containing scene’s xml:id is "emdMV_M_a1_s1", so the xml:id of the speech is "emdMV_M_a1_s1" followed by "_sp" and its speech number which is, in this case, "1".
In this example, the play is divided into scenes only:
<div type="scene" n="1" xml:id="emdAHDM_M_s1">
  <sp who="#emdAHDM_M_Labervele" xml:id="emdAHDM_M_s1_sp1">
    <speaker>Labervele</speaker>
    <l>Yet hath the morning sprinkled thr’out the clouds</l>
    <!-- Rest of the speech goes here. -->
  </sp>
</div>
The containing scene’s xml:id is "emdAHDM_M_s1", so the xml:id of the speech is "emdAHDM_M_s1" followed by "_sp" and its speech number which is, in this case, also "1".

Prosopography

Chloe Mee

Chloe Mee (she/her) worked as a research assistant with the LEMDO team over several periods from 2022 to 2025. She graduated from the University of Victoria in 2025 with a BA (Hons with distinction) in English. She will be studying at the University of British Columbia to complete her MA in English. Chloe collaborated with the LEMDO team on a VKURA internship in summer 2022, mainly focusing on Hamlet quartos. Following her internship, she also worked as a research assistant in 2022–23 and 2025.

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.

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 Number Speeches
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.