James H. Coombs
Steven J. DeRose
Abstract
Markup practices can affect the move toward systems that support scholars in the process of thinking and writing. Whereas procedural and presentational markup systems retard that movement, descriptive markup systems accelerate the pace by simplifying mechanical tasks and allowing the authors to focus their attention on the content.
- 1 Alexander. G.B. Computer aids for authors and editors: A natural extension of word processing and typesetting? Seybold Rep. Publ. Syst. 13, 10 {Feb. 13. 1984), 3-21.Google Scholar
- 2 American National Standards Institute. Infornuzfio~~ Processi,lg-Text and Office Systems-Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). IS0 8879-1986 (E), ANSI, New York. 1986. (First edition: Oct. 15. 1986.)Google Scholar
- 3 Association for Computing Machinery. Proceedings ?f thy ACM SIGPLAN-SIGOA Symposium on Text Manipulatim. ACM. New York, 1981.Google Scholar
- 4 Association of American Publishers. Electronic Maruscript Project: Task I Report. Aspen Systems, Rockville. Md. 1984.Google Scholar
- 5 Association of American Publishers. Standard for EIwtrmtic Manuscript Preparafion and Markup. Electronic Manuscript Series. Association of American Publishers. Washington, D.C. Feb. 1986.Google Scholar
- 6 Association of American Publishers. Author's Guide fo Electronic Manuscript Preparation and Markup. Electronic Manuscript Series. Association of American Publishers. Washington. D.C. May 1986.Google Scholar
- 7 BDS. (TAG) The SGML Newsletter. BDS. Sterling, Va.Google Scholar
- 8 Beach. R., and Stone. M. Graphical style-Towards high quality illustrations. In SIGGRAPH 83 Conference Promdings. ACM, New York. 1983, pp. 127-135. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 9 Bush. V. As we may think. Afl. Mon. 776. 1 (July 1945). 101-108.Google Scholar
- 10 Carmody, S., Cross. W. Nelson, T.H., Rice, D., and van Dam, A. A hypertext editing system for the /360. In Perfinmt Concepts in Computer Graphics. M. Faiman and J. Nievergelt. Eds. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Ill., 1969, pp. 291-330.Google Scholar
- 11 Chamberlin. D.D. et al. JANUS: An interactive system for document composition. In Proceedings of the ACM SJGPLAN-SIGOA Symposium on Tut Manipulation (Portland. Oreg., June 9-10). AIZM. New York. 1981, pp. 82-91. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 12 Coombs. J.H. Information management system for scholars. Tech. Memo. TM 69-2, Computer Center. Brown Univ., Providence. R.I. Dec. 1986.Google Scholar
- 13 Coombs, J.H., Scott, A.M., Landow. G.P. and Sanders, A.A., Eds. A Pm-Raphaelite Friendship: The Correspondence of William Holman Hunt and John Lucas Tupper. UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor. Mich., 1986.Google Scholar
- 14 Corda. U. and Facchetti. G. Concept browser: A system for interactive creation of dynamic documentation. In Texf Processing and Document Manipulation, J.C. van Vliet. Ed. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Mass., 1986, pp. 233-245.Google Scholar
- 15 Drucker. P.F. Management; Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. Harper and Row. New York. 1973.Google Scholar
- 16 Engelhart, D.C. and English, W.K. A research center for augmenting human intellect. In Proceedings of the AFIPS Fall joint Computer Can- /erence (San Francisco, Calif. Dec. 9-11). AFIPS Press, Reston. Va., 1968. pp. 395-410.Google Scholar
- 17 Engelhart. D.C. Watson, R.W. and Norton, J.C. The augmented knowledge workship. In Proceedings of the National Computer Conference (New York, June 4-8). AFIPS Press, Reston, Va., 1973. pp. 9-2 1.Google Scholar
- 18 Goldfarb. CF. A generalized approach to document markup. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN-SIGOA Symposium on Text Manipulation (Portland. Oreg. June 9-10). ACM, New York. 1'381. pp. 68-73. (Adapted as "Annex A. Introduction to generalized markup" in {z}.} Google ScholarDigital Library
- 19 Integration and pagination: Long documents. proposals, books. Seybold Rep. Publ. Syst. 16. 16 (Apr. 27, 1987). 21-27.Google Scholar
- 20 Interfaces. media converters and OCR devices. Seybold Rep. Publ. sysr. 75. 18 (June 2. 1986). 34-39.Google Scholar
- 21 Lamport. L. LATEX User's Guide and Reference Manual. Addison- Wesley. Reading, Mass., 1986.Google Scholar
- 22 Mamrak. S.A. Kaclbling. M.I. Nicholas. C.K. and Share. M. A software archilecture for supporting the exchange of electronic manuscripts. Conln~un. ACM 30. 5 (May 1987). 408-414. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 23 Meyrowitz. N. and van Dam, A. Interactive editing systems: Parts I and II. ACM Conrpuf. Sum. 14. 3 (Sept. 1982). 321-415. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 24 Modern Language Association. MLA Handbook. MLA. New York. 1977.Google Scholar
- 25 Modern Language Association. ML.4 Handbook. MLA. New York. 1984.Google Scholar
- 26 Nelson. T.H. Getting it out of our system. In I~@malio~~ Rcfrieval: A Critic-al Rruiew. G. Schecter, Ed. Thompson, Washington, D.C. 1967. pp. 191-210.Google Scholar
- 27 Nelson. T.H. Cnrrrpul. Libr. (1974).Google Scholar
- 28 Nelson. T.H. Llferaq Machirm. Nelson. Nashville. Term. 1981.Google Scholar
- 29 Nievergelt. 1. Coray. G. Nicoud. I.D. and Shaw. A.C. Eds. Documetlf Prcparafrw Sys~rnrs. North-Holland. Amsterdam. 1982.Google Scholar
- 30 Reid, B.K. A high-level approach to computer document formatting. In Pror-erdings of the 7th A~rt~ual ACM Symposium on Programming Lmguagcs (Ix Vegas. Nev. lune). ACM, New York. 1980. pp. 24-30. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 31 Trigs. R.H. and We&r. M. TEXTNET: A network-based approach to texl handling. ACM Trans. Off. /,I{. Sysf. 4. 1 (Jan. 1986). l-23. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 32 van Dam, A., and Rice. D.E. On-line text editing: A survey. ACM Compul. Surv. 3. 3 (Sept. 1971). 93-114. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 33 Yankelovich. N. Meyrowitz. N. and van Dam. A. Reading and writing the electronic book. Cunrpufer 78. 10 {Oct. 1985). 15-30. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Markup systems and the future of scholarly text processing
Recommendations
Markup: XML & related technologies
The columbia guide to digital publishingMarkup enables the various parts and features of a given set of content to be distinguished and named. It provides a way to label, describe, and delimit these in a publication so that processing systems can tell them apart and know how they relate to ...
Research in XML (extensible markup language)
As the volume of data on the Internet dramatically increases, a standardized structure for handling this data becomes essential. The World Wide Web Consortium has called for just such a standard and XML has answered their calling.The Extensible Markup ...
Reviews
Christopher L. Hallgren
This paper considers the academic text in relation to text processing. In some ways, the view of the authors strikes a pose promised in the myth of truly portable generalized markup languages that loomed on the horizon in the 1960s. They repeat their case for descriptive markup over and over, as academic reseach and writing finds its way into several papers, publications, and venues, all with different formats. Descriptive markup defines the parts of a document, regardless of how they are to be handled in terms of spacing, arrangement, punctuation, or typography. The problem with a descriptive markup language is that it is tied to a compiler that can read the descriptive tokens in the text and perform the necessary processing. If the document if used only on the author's computer, this poses no difficulty; if it is shared in machine-readable format, this leads to a lot of fussing with programs to get the document to come out correctly. From their particular vantage point, the authors perform a wide survey of the methods used to prepare and format text documents. They correctly identify problems of maintainability and portability in several of the more primitive (simple punctuation tokens or commands) as well as sophisticated (desktop publishing format profiles) text-processing systems. Huge documents can require weeks of re-marking when a simple change in interpreters or systems takes place. Also, within the context of specialized text requirements such as formal dissertations or academic documents, descriptive tokens do have some advantages for handling the picayune differences between document parts in different contexts. However, the authors neglect several aspects of the wide field of text processing, to the advantage of their argument. Most systems (Microsoft Word being one) have a page preview function, so that simple text changes can be previewed on the screen without binding the user to the change. Also, desktop publishing has greatly enhanced the ease with which an author can change fonts, styles, and other aspects of a document. Some of the more sophisticated systems, such as Interleaf, can employ a token system to define parts of a document and dynamically control styles in real time using the same system (WYSIWYG). Any markup language that is not WYSIWYG must lead two lives—marked up source and formatted output. The interaction between these two is often laborious, not to mention wasteful, in terms of memory or print drafts. The paper's strong points are a good summary of academic text requirements and a summary of the less sophisticated mainframe methods of creating publishable text copy. The authors also supply a good history of text processing methods up to the mid-1970s.
Access critical reviews of Computing literature here
Become a reviewer for Computing Reviews.
Comments