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SIFT shows you how tagging reveals layers of knowledge in a textual corpus. The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) lets you mark individual items of data that are similar. For example below, using a bibliography, we can quickly see how book entries have a pattern, with, say place of publication occuring in every entry in the list. Please use the drop-down to select option place as your HIGHLIGHT CHOICE, and type in 7 in the box Size in mm, and type blue in the Colour box, then click the red button. Paris, Québec and Montréal will all appear as larger, blue words.

For the highlighting to work, tags must be typed around each word like this:
  <xmltag name="place">Québec</xmltag>
XML tags are transformed into stylesheet tags so that they display correctly in a web-page such as the one you are reading now. After the transform the resulting cascading stylesheet (css) tag looks like this, with a coded attribute name which we re-use in our interactive web-page, here:
  <span class="pods" name="1">Québec</span>

HIGHLIGHT CHOICE Size in mm Colour    Φ    

Body text  Size in mm Colour    Φ 

Highlight any keyword.  Find what       Φ         Ctrl R refreshes text  

EXTRACT size Colour Attribute =    Φ    
Example Annotated Bibliography

Dickner, Nicolas (2005) Nikolski Québec, Nota Bene Alto, 326pp. 2895182000

Chassay, Jean-François (2006) Les taches solaires : roman Montréal, Boréal, 372pp. 2764604289

Tremblay, Larry (2006) Piercing : 3 récits Paris, Gallimard, 158pp. 2070776166

Jacques, André (2000) Les lions rampants : roman policier Montréal, Editions Québec, 359pp.

Gravel, François (2000) Fillion et frères Montréal, Editions Québec, 345pp.

Fortin, Pierre (2002) Le marcheur : roman Montréal, Editions Québec, 218pp. 2764401825

Belcourt, Claude (2000) Le grand baveur : roman Montréal, Trait d'union, 168pp. 2922572455

Proulx, Monique (2002) Le cœur est un muscle involontaire Montréal, Boréal, 399pp. 2764601816

At this point we can take the idea of tagging for note-making a step further. If you were studying the above novel, by Proulx, you may wish to make thematic notes for later extraction when analysing the work. In this we will use value 3 in the attribute name each time the author touches on the theme of 'underground' and the action value 4 each time a character moves (walks or drives across the city). Here are some tagged notes using just 3 and 4. Please use the EXTRACT option in the fixed box over on the right of your screen to make your selections of action or theme.

NOTES: Chapter title 3 is 'Sous la terre' (Proulx 2002, 31) . The character Gina Da Sylva [novelists] ils descendent dans les mots, ils s'enfouissent dans le puits de leurs mots (Proulx 2002, 31) . Des créatures en blanc et en vert sillonnent les corridors (Proulx 2002, 13) . Recounts journey where main character dreams of another time outside the space of the city'Nous roulons chez moi en silence' (Proulx 2002, 28) . Discussion of space within the shopping mall in the underground city: l'espace comme un tapis luxueux (Proulx 2002, 219-220) .


Finally, you can experiment by tagging your own data with the span element and changing the numeric value of the name attribute. Please make your changes in the white box on the left here.

Please click on the button 'Add to DOM' and then on 'Display' to show your data on the main web-page. Finally, to extract it again, please use the EXTRACT box on the far right to select which attribute value to extract and show in the top box.

Scroll down for further explanation of how the span class element behaves as an xml element.