Effective Methods of Producing Machine-Readable Text from Manuscript and Print Sources.

Duggan’s contribution (241-46) surveys the choices of a method for generating digital text from manuscript, based on his experience in the PPl Electronic Archive project. Duggan points out that the potential for digital markup is capable of conveying far more information than printed editions ever attempted to convey. Such capabilities present endless opportunities for expanding the editorial project; once detailed markup has begun, it is difficult to determine where to stop. The editors’ ability, using XML markup, to represent on the screen the physical features of the B witnesses offers a striking insight into L’s position as a writer in late-fourteenth-century English poetic composition. Duggan goes on to discuss transcriptional protocols, text-entry software, and version and quality control.