1.1 From Digital Humanities to Speculative Computing - UCLA ...

But the italics used for a title and those used for emphasis are not the same. Likewise a
“header” is not the same as a “title” –they belong to different classification schemes, one
graphical and the other bibliographical. While graphic features such as bold, italic, or
relative scale and size have semantic value, their semiotic code is vague and
insubstantial.
XML, (eXtensible Markup Language), contain tags that describe and model
content. XML labels the content of texts. So instead of identifying “headers” or
“paragraphs” and other physical or graphical elements, XML tags identify content types –
titles, subtitles, author’s names or pseudonyms, places of publication, dates of editions,
and so on:
“Really, is that what XML does?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied, graciously, trying to catch
her gaze.
All this seems straightforward enough until we pause to consider that perhaps this
exchange should take a tag, given the phrases the follow:
[start here?]
“Really, is that what XML does?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied, graciously, [or should
start here?] trying to catch her gaze.
[or start here?]
His glance showed how much he appreciated the intellectual interest—and the
way it was expressed by her large blue eyes, which she suddenly dropped,
blushing. “Can you show me?”
But where does begin and end? Before or after the first exchange? Or
in the middle of it? The importance of defining tag sets and of placing individual tags
1.1 History / 3/2008 /
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