This part of the guidelines provides a detailed description of the design and
structure of the formats of the Text Alignment Network. The material follows the
organization of the schema files (kept in the schemas
subdirectory), so
both can be read in tandem.
Chapter 3, General Underpinnings outlines, in a non-technical way, the principles and technical foundations of the TAN format.
Chapter 4, Patterns and Structures Common to All TAN Encoding Formats, Chapter 5, Class-1 TAN Files, Representations of Textual Objects (Scripta), Chapter 6, Class-2 TAN Files, Annotations of Texts, and Chapter 7, Class-3 TAN Files, Varia describe each TAN format, by class. Each chapter starts with theoretical or scholarly contextual before explaining technical points.
The chapters in this part are meant to provide a narrative companion to the much more detailed technical appendixes, Chapter 9, TAN patterns, elements, and attributes defined and Chapter 10, Official TAN vocabularies, which are derived from the master schemas and vocabularies.
The chapters in this part of the guidelines should be read selectively, not consecutively. They have been written with the assumption that you have already read the previous part (Part I, “General Overview”) and that you have already started to create or edit a TAN collection.
Because readers will come from different specialties, all acronyms, abbreviations, and concepts are defined and explained, albeit tersely. Concepts or technologies are discussed only insofar as they affect the use of TAN; suggestions for further reading are provided for those who want a more thorough introduction to a topic.
Table of Contents