“Texts of all kinds are fundamental in the study of many disciplines, and much effort has been devoted to creating reliable, accurate and readable versions of texts, both in print and in the digital world” (LibGuides: Digital Humanities – Introduction: Working with Text, 2021). Text encoding and electronic text are but two principles within digital humanities scholarship around which significant amounts of attention and debate has been centered. In fact, “A Companion to Digital Humanities” by Shreibman et al.], provides a rather insightful history and breakdown of these two critical areas.

In Chapter 17, dubbed “Text Encoding”, Allen Renear deep dives into mark-up related techniques and systems, particularly descriptive markup, as an important tool for encoding activities. Descriptive markup describes a systematic approach for the organization and processing of texts and digital publishing that, when compared to procedural markup, provides a host of advantages among which is the simplified composition and control over formatting. Its early use was also put forward as the stimulus for the development and widespread utilization of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines.

Renear’s concise account of descriptive markup and various markup languages as they pertain to text encoding was quite compelling. His explanation on these key tools in the usage of digital texts has certainly shown me how limited my view of some everyday digital objects has been. For instance, my brief stint with HTML has really narrowed my view of the language as merely a facilitator of website creation, however, as Renear would have demonstrated, it is much more than that. I never would have guessed that the language’s origins were rooted in digital humanities techniques, nor would I have been able to appreciate its early faults.

On the other hand, Perry Willet in Chapter 18, “Electronic Texts: Audiences and Purposes”, examines the varying views, users, and purposes of electronic texts in humanities research, as well as its publishing and widespread distribution on the World Wide Web. Furthermore, the author explores the isolation of computing humanists, the opposition raised by traditionalists during the early adoption of e-texts and attempts to provide a balanced view of the weaknesses and strengths of the use of e-texts as faced by scholars.

Once again, “A Companion to Digital Humanities”, provides another thought-provoking overview of a previously unfamiliar concept. In my day-to-day life, I interact with a great deal of electronic texts based on the encoding systems described by Renear and have come to rely on my access to these texts for school research and my overall learning. Although I can empathize with the traditionalists’ fear of the unknown and some of the challenges these scholars encounter in using these collections, it is still quite astonishing to learn that there existed so much opposition among humanists when e-texts were first introduced and adopted. Nevertheless, I believe that electronic texts have demonstrated their value in a variety of humanities fields, notably digital preservation and textual analysis, as e-texts are an essential means for preserving printed work and one of the necessary inputs for textual analysis tools like Voyant Tools.

In sum, there are quite a number of discussions to be had in regards to text encoding and electronic texts. Within the field of digital humanities, these two principles have an extensive history, so much so that there is a lot of material dedicated to their examination. Among these is Chapter 17 and 18 of “A Companion to Digital Humanities” by Shreibman et al. which provides a very concise yet intriguing account that proves quite clear for any newcomer to the field.