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  3. Structure of a Prose Text

Structure of a Prose Text

In order to include a critical edition of a prose text, we use only divisions <div> to mark each of the books, chapters or sections required by the structure of each work according to its canonical numbering. Each section may be further divided into paragraphs <p>.

An example would be:

<text type="source" xml:lang="grc" xml:id="grc">
	<body>
		<div n="3" type="book" xml:id="grc.3">
			<head>Liber tertius</head>
			<div type="chapter" n="4" xml:id="grc.3.4">
				<div type="section" n="1" xml:id="grc.3.4.1">
					<p>Κάδμος δὲ ἀποθανοῦσαν θάψας Τηλέφασσαν, ὑπὸ Θρᾳκῶν ξενισθείς, ἦλθεν εἰς Δελφοὺς περὶ τῆς Εὐρώπης πυνθανόμενος. ὁ δὲ θεὸς εἶπε περὶ μὲν Εὐρώπης μὴ πολυπραγμονεῖν, χρῆσθαι δὲ καθοδηγῷ βοΐ, καὶ πόλιν κτίζειν ἔνθα ἂν αὕτη τοιοῦτον λαβὼν χρησμὸν διὰ Φωκέων ἐπορεύετο, εἶτα … </p>
				</div>
				<div type="section" n="2" xml:id="grc.3.4.2">
					<p> ... Contents ... </p>
				</div>
				… Resto de secciones del capítulo 3.4 …
			</div>
			<div type="chapter" n="5" xml:id="grc.3.5">
				… Contenidos del capítulo 3.5 …
			</div>
		</div>
		… Resto de libros …
	</body>
</text>

Each <div> must have three mandatory attributes:

  • @type: the type of division in question: chapter, section, paragraph, page, etc. Whatever the text we are editing needs.
  • @nthe canonical number of that division. Each work has its own traditional numbering and we must respect the one indicated in our reference edition.
  • @xml:idthe unique identifier of each division. This is essential for aligning original text and translations. They must always carry the language prefix followed by the canonical numbering, and must be identical in all versions of the text that are published, with the exception of the language prefix.

In order to generate a table of contents of the edition (and thus facilitate navigation through the document), we need to insert a title <head> (cf. <head>) as the first tag within the <div> that we want to appear in the index. Each text will have its own structure.

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