Second Assignment
Write an essay about two things: 1) problems you encountered in preparing TEI-XML editions of two or three stories by Edgar Allan Poe and
2) analytical insights you have gained into the stories by applying digital tools to the stories. Your essay must be between three and a
half pages and five pages in length. Essays shorter or longer than these might be returned unread or with a failing grade. Use double-space
lineation, a 12-point Roman font, and one-inch margins on all sides. Your writing is expected to be error-free and up to university standards.
Note: your essay must be your own. While the preparatory work for this assignment is collaborative, your essay is not.
Your treatment of the first item should be no longer than two paragraphs (or one page). Briefly outline some of the work you and your group
did to prepare the TEI-XML edition of the stories. Avoid stating the obvious. Explain some of the difficult tagging decisions, and point to
potential problems with the taggings. Is there anything you would have liked to have done differently? What ambiguities result from the
tagging choices? Can you think of better ways of accomplishing the task?
The rest of your essay must be the results of your attempts to analyse the stories using digital tools. For this, you do not have to
have read the stories, though you are encouraged to do so: you should identify in your essay whether or not you have read the stories (or
only one or two of them, and which ones).
You must restrict yourself to using the digital tools available directly on the Poe
Stories web site. You are welcome to focus solely on the stories assigned to your group, or you can treat both your stories and the
other stories available on the web site.
Before using the tools, the stories must be prepared as TEI-XML documents. Using the web site interface, you should collaborate with your
group in preparing TEI-XML documents for the two or three stories assigned to your group. In addition to the TEI
shell, each story must include the following tags: <p>, <emph>, <q>, <persName>, <placeName>, <interp>. In addition, you should
use the following tags as needed: <quote>, <ref>, <foreign>, <w>, <seg>, <lg>, and <l>. Each person in
the group is responsible for including two <interp> tags (both in one story or in two different stories). All stories should be able to be
displayed properly using the pre-defined XSLT on the web site. Groups are welcome to use additional TEI tags if they wish.
One of the digital tools available for the stories is a thematic analysis tool. Eight themes will be defined: three are pre-defined and
each group is responsible for defining another theme. All students are expected to contribute words and phrases to the themes: both the three
pre-defined themes and the one theme associated with their own group. Groups should decide together what their group theme will be and then
tell the instructor so that it will be identified properly on the web site. On November 19, all editing of theme words and phrases
and editing of the stories will be disabled: the associated data will be finalized on November 20.
The assignment is due on November 24th. Consult the course outline for information about late assignments.
The web site is now available for login: Poe Stories.
The source for these stories: Poe, Edgar Allan. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. 10 vols. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1900.
The stories come from the following volumes in the series, in the order listed above: 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 3.