Notes about notes and milestones

1. Note markers

Example 1: a text which uses double colons in the text as note markers.

Example 2: a text which uses quotation marks as note markers.

The printers were apt to use any odd bit of type as a note marker. For the quotation marks, use the entity reference for the appropriate quotation mark, e.g. N="&ldquot;". For the double colons, simply use a pair of colons <NOTE N="::">.

Example 3: a marginal note is recorded using a symbol (matched by a corresponding symbol in the text) that we do not normally record, e.g. a fleur de lys, a flower, etc.

Notes (footnotes or marginal notes) that are tied to a spot in the main text by unusual symbols for which there is no ISO character entity or EEBO-provided character entity should substitute a simple asterisk (*) as the value of the "N" attribute of the <NOTE> tag, e.g. <NOTE PLACE="marg" N="*">. (Do not make the * part of the text of the book.) For examples, see  http://www.lib.umich.edu/eebo/docs/dox/noteflag.html

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2. Note placement

Example: all the notes without markers in the text have been put in the wrong place, in that they are in the middle of sentences rather than at the end of the passage they are referring to. Is it OK to leave them?

Yes. Unless the book is quite short or the notes quite rare, it is almost always too much work to try to place notes accurately. We have had to reconcile outselves to that fact.

Example: The marginal notes  are marked with letters (e.g. a, b, c, etc.) to identify the place where they should be inserted in the body. However, there is no letter "f" in the body to insert the note from the margin.

Place the marginal note in the text at a logical place between "e" and "g".

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3. Handling endnotes

Example: throughout the text are note markers (a, b, c, etc.) and at the end of each chapter there is a section headed Annotations. Can we link the note with the passage in the text? If not, should the notes be moved into the text?

Leave the Annotations section where it is, as a separate DIV. Record the note markers in the text as simple text (^b or whatever).Normally we  leave the two unlinked.

Endnotes differ from footnotes in that they appear at the end of the section, all gathered together, rather than being printed at the foot of the page to which they refer. Our preferred treatment for end notes is to leave them where they appear in the book and NOT insert them in the main text--because moving them would
leave their own pages blank. Since we are not using the note markers (a, b, c, etc.) to place the notes, we suggest leaving them in place as literal text, e.g. ^a ^b etc.
The notes themselves would then become a <DIV> (TYPE="notes"); each individual note would then become either a <P> or (in this case), a subordinate <DIV> (TYPE="note").

E.g.:

<DIV2 TYPE="notes">
  <DIV3 TYPE="note" N="a">
     <P>Blessings, or all happy things...

There is a facility in the dtd for *linking* to endnotes. Since this can be a time-consuming process, we have not required it, but the facility is there if you want to use
it. Linking requires assigning an ID value to each note, and then using either the <REF> element or the empty <PTR> element to point to that ID using the TARGET
attribute, e.g.

in the text ...

   <LG>
   <L>THe Man is <REF TARGET="S25902.note1a">^a</REF>
   blest, who walketh not <REF TARGET="S25902.note1b">^b</REF>
   astray</L>

pointing to the notes ...
 

    <DIV2 TYPE="notes">
      <DIV3 TYPE="note" N="a" ID="S25902.note1a">
      <P>Blessings, or all happy things, belong to
      that man, &amp;c. For some take the Hebrew word
      to be a Substantiue plurall, and some an Adie|ctiue
      plurall; but which soeuer it be, it is fully e|nough
      expressed in this our English phrase, <HI>Blest,</HI>
      or, <HI>Blessed is the man.</HI></P></DIV3>
      <DIV3 TYPE="note" N="b" ID="S25902.note1b">
      <P>The word, <HI>astray,</HI> seemes heere to be
      added onely for the verse sake, but the sence
      indeede includeth it, seeing it is an errone|ous
      <PB N="11" REF="12">
      walking from God, which is meant in this place.</P></DIV3>
 

But this linking step is entirely optional--we have occasionally added the links ourselves, but have never asked conversion firms to do it. The more important point
is that end notes should be left where they appear, not inserted in the text.

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4. STAGE and NOTE combined

In a play, should we consider the data enclosed with an "*" sign (e.g. [*Exit, shaking his head...) as marginal note or stage direciton? If STAGE, should we capture the "*" sign as PCDATA?

This is an example of a stage direction acting in some ways like a marginal note, with an asterisk pointing to the place at which it should be inserted. There are several possible solutions. One would be to treat them as both NOTE and STAGE, like this:
<NOTE PLACE="marg" N="*"><STAGE>...</STAGE></NOTE>

Another would be to add an "N" attribute to the <STAGE> element in the dtd, like this:
<STAGE N="*">...</STAGE>

But th easiest is the treat them as <STAGE>, insert them at the point indicated by the asterisk, and preserve the * as PCDATA.
 


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5. Use of MILESTONE unit attribute

If the nature of the unit is obvious (e.g. chapter 1 -- chapter 2 -- [etc.]), you may use the "unit" attribute to capture that information: <MILESTONE UNIT="chapter" N="2"> <MILESTONE UNIT="chapter" N="1">

Example: A book which uses numbers indicating "the yere of the worlde" and "the yere before Christ" and "before Brittaine knovves"; the numbers change from page to page indicating the different years.

This is just the sort of sequential (but non-structural) number sequence that belongs in MILESTONE tags.

Iin this book, there are basically three types of milestones at work: one is a count of years since the beginning of the world ("The yere of the worlde"); one is
the traditional dating before and after Christ ("The yere before Chryste" (i.e. BC) giving way to "The yere of Chryste" (i.e., AD)); and the third has to do with Britain and later England, first, for prehistoric times, a dating backwards from when Britain became known to the rest of the world ("Before britayne knowwen") and
then, in the same place on the page, first the regnal years of  the British kings ("anni regum britanni"), and then the regnal years of the English kings who succeeded the British ("anni regum angli.").

Each number should be captured with a MILESTONE tag, like this (the numbers have been invented for the sake of example):

<MILESTONE UNIT="The yere of the worlde" N="237">

<MILESTONE UNIT="The yere before Chryste" N="2456">
<MILESTONE UNIT="The yere of Chryste" N="23">
 

<MILESTONE UNIT="before britayne knowwen" N="6">
<MILESTONE UNIT="anni regum britanni" N="5">
<MILESTONE UNIT="anni regum angli" N="7">

And as to where to insert the tags,  insert them much as you would NOTEs. In most cases, that will mean at the beginning of the paragraph that begins on the same
line; or if no paragraph begins there, at the nearest punctuation mark.

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6. Milestones with illegible attributes

MILESTONEs without N are usually difficult-to-read or illegible MILESTONEs. The reason the N gets dropped is that keeping it would require
markup within the attribute value, e.g.

<MILESTONE N="1<GAP DESC="illegible" EXTENT="1 letter">">

It appears that our practice has been mixed in such cases: some people have been omitting the tag entirely, others have left the tag in place but omitted the attribute, leaving just <MILESTONE>.

The latter is actually better. It at least preserves the information that there is *something* there, even if it is hard to read. And in a book with a series of milestones, this could be information enough. E.g.:

[1] In the beginning God created the Heauen and the Earth.
[ ] And the earth was without form, and voyd, and darkenesse was
vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God moued vpon
the face of the waters. [3] And God said, Let there be light:
and there was light.

The conclusion is: (1) we should keep MILESTONE tags in the text, even when the N attribute cannot be supplied; and (2) that we should probably preserve these in the online text as well, perhaps simply "[ ]" as above.

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7. Multiple notes associated with a single note reference

The author lists three authors for the information referenced by the note-marker "2", and lists each source as if it were a separate note. Group all of them together and refer to them as a single unit.

Provide some internal structure to the note so as to divide the three parts, using either P or LIST+ITEM.

<NOTE PLACE="marg" N="2">
<P>Irenaeus li. 3 ca. 3</P>
<P>Tertul. de prae|script. aduers. haeretic.</P>
<P>Hierony. in Ignatio.</P>
</NOTE>

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