Heads and labels

Encoding Instructions (old P4 version)

Headings and labels overlap to some degree; both give identifying information about a chunk of text. Although we can identify different functions for the two (for instance, naming versus sequencing), we nonetheless see these two functions combined in many places (e.g. “Chapter 1: The Monk”), which makes it difficult to base a consistent encoding practice on function alone.

The WWP uses head for

-- all headings at the top of div-level components regardless of their content, e.g. div, <lg type="poem.foo">

-- descriptive (non-sequencing) headings of non-div elements, e.g. stanzas.

We use label for sequence-based labels of non-div components, e.g. stanzas, list items, paragraphs

A sequence-based label consists of a sequencing component (number, letter, other sequencing indicator, e.g. “First”, “2nd”, “Last”, “5”) accompanied by an optional word indicating a unit of measure: e.g. “stanza”, “chapter”, “question”, etc.)

In cases of doubt, or if both sequencing and non-sequencing information are present (e.g. Stanza 1: The Bird), use head.

Some specific cases:

Chapter and other div titles are always encoded with head, even if they just consist of a number. Titles of independent poems always get encoded with head, whether they are surrounded by both a DIV and lg type="poem.foo" or just with lg type="poem.foo" (as with poems appearing nested in prose narratives).

Sequence indicators for stanzas, paragraphs, list items (whether they are numbers, letters, or other sequencing marks) are always encoded with label.

Titles of individual stanzas within a single poem consisting of descriptive phrases like “The bluebird” get head.

Dates are an interesting borderline case, even though they’re encoded with dateline and hence don’t really require a solution here. When used at the start of diary entries or other chunks of prose, dates contain both a sequencing function and a naming or heading-like function. When used in something like a change log, where the date serves strictly as an ordering device for a sequence of events or textual units, it seems much more exclusively like a label.

Note that since head isn’t legal as a child of p, there appears not to be a direct analogy between poetry and prose as to when you may use head (i.e. you may never use head in p, but you may in lg, which looks like a comparable thing). However, the presence of a head-like thing at the top of a p constitutes evidence that this is really a div. This is OK.