XML Exercise: Historic Letter

Before you begin

Before beginning this assignment, you should prepare your workspace: Where do you want to do your coding homework this semester? You will be doing most of your coding work for this course in the <oXygen/> XML Editor. This is installed in the campus computer labs, and you may also install it on any other computer(s) you plan to work with this semester. Also, before beginning homework assignments, you need to read the related tutorials we have posted (plus notes you took in class) and keep these open and handy to consult as you are working. For the very first assignment, here is what you will need:

• Install the <oXygen/> software on your own computer(s) Follow the instructions and apply the license key we have posted on Canvas.
• Read our Introduction to XML
• Read File Conventions for Canvas Assignments, so you will know how to name this and most other homework files you submit on Canvas.

Goals

This assignment should give you experience with:

1. Writing well-formed XML using elements and attributes.
2. Making decisions in how to write XML so that it binds related kinds of information together by:
   • Nesting elements that relate to each other.
   • Thinking about the relationship between your markup and the source document.
   • Thinking of elements and attributes working together (like file folders with labels attached).
3. Using basic features of the <oXygen/> software environment.

Scenario

Imagine yourself as a curator of historical letters by a famous writer from a past century, and you are building a digital resource that makes this author's personal letters available to read and search for interesting kinds of information, and to help bring the past to life for your readers. The kinds of information you choose to mark up in XML are up to you, but think of the code you apply as the basis for coding many more letters written by the same person.

Choose a letter

Choose the text of one letter linked on one of the following websites (click through until you see a complete letter with a writer and a recipient), and copy all relevant text into a new XML document in <oXygen/>. Then, mark it up in well-formed XML, using your own system of tagging, as seems appropriate, to code the structure and the content of the document. Important: Save and name your XML document according to the File Conventions and be sure it as the proper .xml file extension before you upload to Courseweb!

Options:

• Harriet Jacobs (choose one of the letters: this is a selection of letters between people involved in Harriet Jacobs' flight from slavery and writing of her autobiography before the Civil War).
• Oscar Wilde (choose one of the letters used as evidence in a famous English court trial of 1895).

Coding the letter in <oXygen/>

• First, highlight and copy the text of the document that is relevant for representing the historic letter you have selected. (Consider including information surrounding the letter, as well as the letter itself.)
• Open a new XML document in <oXygen/>. Click on the icon at top left that looks like a piece of paper with a folded corner (or go to File and New...), type XML in the filter window, and click the Create button to launch a new XML document.
• Paste in the text you intend to mark up, and begin marking it to apply elements and add attributes.
• Tips: Watch the color of the square in the upper right corner: if it is green, your code is well-formed, but if it turns angry red, you will know there is an error, perhaps tangled tags or a missing angle bracket, or a missing root element. Notice how <oXygen/> generates a closing tag every time you type your own start tag. One handy trick is to you use your mouse to highlight text you want to wrap in an element, and use Control+E in Windows (or Command+E on a Mac) to bring up a window to enter an element name. (You have to add the attributes after you set an element name.)
• Save your work frequently, and name your file using our standard form for homework names.

Curating the document: Suggestions for XML markup

Frequently the XML code we write is designed for digital curation, for preserving and collecting resources. We would certainly not rewrite thebase text of a writer's personal correspondence, but we would apply markup around passages, so that our markup supplies some information in a more systematic way. For example, spaces and formatting on the page tell our human eyes something about the document, like how to distinguish each item on a list. That formatting information is not preserved in XML, and so one of the first things we mark are the structural pieces. What are the important parts of this document that you need to distinguish from other parts? Use XML markup to tag those. Then, what is the important information that you can label with markup?

Tips:

• Try not to code element and attributes that copy the same words and phrases in the text. think of categories, standard units, or simple identifiers you can supply so that your markup adds new value to the text.
• Try to use elements and attribute names that you imagine repeating if you were coding many letters in a project. Think about how to keep the coding manageable and not too complicated for others to continue.
• Consider adding elements (perhaps a note with your own text inside) to annotate the document or represent some of the contextual information available with the text. How do you separate your voice, or others' voices from the original letter-writer's voice?

There is no single way to do this exercise, but we want you to think about how you nest levels of information (elements within elements), and the relationship between elements and attributes in XML.

When, where, and how to submit the assignment

Check and make sure you saved your file following our homework file naming rules, including giving it a .xml file extension. Submit your XML file on Canvas on Assignments (for XML Exercise 1) before our next class.