Online Scholarly
Editions
Introduction to Advanced Research
Academic Technology Services
Overview
Contents
 Discussion
 Tasks
 Tools
 Design
 Resources
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Contents of an Online Edition
Primary text
 Authorial documents in addition to basic
text
 Second-party textual materials
 Editorial materials
 Logical organization and easy navigation
 Analytical tools (e.g. search engine)
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Contents > Primary Text
Logically selected, manageable textual
content
 For example: an edition of a single work, a
group of works generically or
chronologically grouped
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Contents > Authorial documents
adaptations
 working notes
 contracts
 tables of contents
 prefaces
 abstracts
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Contents > Second-party materials
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For Example: letters from respondents
may be desirable in an edition of letters
Contents > Editorial materials
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prefaces and acknowledgments
lists of sigla, symbols, and abbreviations
textual essay
textual apparatus (notes or hyperlinks)
historical/interpretive essay
illustrations or charts, diagrams, maps
historical/explanatory notes
appendices
bibliography
glossary
index
Contents > Analytical tools
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For example: a search engine
Contents > Organizational Tools
Table of Contents
 Navigational Links
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Discussion
Examples
 Rhetorical Questions
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Introduction > Examples
Early English Books Online
 Classic for Young People's Gulliver's
Travels
 Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse
Bibliography
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Introduction > More Examples
Victorian Women Writers Project
 Early English Prose Fiction (login through
BC Libraries)
 Electronic Text Center at the University of
Virginia (login through BC Libraries)
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Discussion > Questions
Who will read your text, why, and how?
 Who is your audience?
 Why are they reading it?
 Is it a replacement for the original text?
 How will they read it? Straight through? Printed out?
 Which technologies are available to you? To your
audience?
 What is the future of this text? Is it part of a larger
database project?
Tasks
Document Analysis
 Digitization
 Markup and Organization
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Task > Document Analysis
Define project objectives
 Explore document’s context
 Define the document type
 Decide which features to encode
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(See “Document Analysis” chapter Creating and Documenting
Electronic Texts: A Guide to Good Practice)
Tasks > Digitizing
Scanning
 Image capture
 Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
 Re-Keying
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Tasks > Mark-up/Organization
Creating pages for the web
 Organizing content
 Creating navigation for usability
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Tools
Tools > Designer
Web Host (personal web account)
 HTML Authoring software
 Digitizing equipment
 Browser
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Tools > Audience
Browsers
 Speed of Internet Connection
 Applications and Plug-ins
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Design
Segmentation
 Organization
 Navigation
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Design > Segmentation
Single Document (example)
 Many Documents (example)
 Frames (example)
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Design > Organization
Where should the content be broken in to
separate pages?
 In what order should the extra-textual
material appear?
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Design > Navigation
Navigation with next/previous (example)
 Navigation bar with frames (example)
 Name Anchors (within documents, notes)
 External Links
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Sources
MLA Guidelines for Electronic Scholarly
Editions
 Creating and Documenting Electronic
Texts: A Guide to Good Practice
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