[{"id":282,"date":"2022-12-15T17:33:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T17:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/?p=282"},"modified":"2023-07-17T17:34:45","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T17:34:45","slug":"core-issues-for-starting-a-new-online-html-based-publication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/2022\/12\/15\/core-issues-for-starting-a-new-online-html-based-publication\/","title":{"rendered":"Core Issues for Starting a New Online Publication"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This comes out of thinking and discussion with Blackbird<\/em> staff and other digital publishing colleagues over the course of a number of years. This is an excerpt from working distillation from a longer 2020 draft, and is in progress.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Address ADA compliance not just to meet institutional checkboxes, but with affected communities of readers.<\/li>
  2. Respect the poetic line; take into account poetry, some drama, and other specialized texts or art pieces and being unrenderable in responsive design. Assuming poetry as much as a visual presentation as a textual one, provide a fixed-width display to respect and preserve mise-en-page.<\/li>
  3. Address layout of poetry in HTML with your designer with the awareness that setting an html content is not at all like setting pages in WHIZYWIG text processors.<\/li>
  4. Ensure that content in individual issues won’t be broken or corrupted by future changes to a global template’s CSS.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    [Addendum 7\/17\/2023. As VCU prepares to launch a new version of the journal on a new platform, I need to clarify that I was not assigned to that project, and the notes and reports I had produced (briefly referenced above) were not taken into account.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This comes out of thinking and discussion with Blackbird staff and other digital publishing colleagues over the course of a number of years. This is an excerpt from working distillation from a longer 2020 draft, and is in progress. Address ADA compliance not just to meet institutional checkboxes, but with affected communities of readers. Respect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1093,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1093"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":278,"date":"2022-10-04T21:48:43","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T21:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/?p=278"},"modified":"2023-01-10T20:38:32","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T20:38:32","slug":"italics-in-closed-captions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/2022\/10\/04\/italics-in-closed-captions\/","title":{"rendered":"Italics in Closed Captions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

    Closed captions of recent readings we published contained book titles and\/or had other content that was italicized in print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Having moved on our initial questions on captioning poetry, we use published print text as our guide when creating closed captions for texts read at public in-person or Zoom events. We have decided to indicate, for example, line and stanza breaks (using \/ and \/\/ respectively) that are visible in the print original but that are otherwise (more often than not) indiscernible as audio.

    We also match capitalization, as it may be eclectic in a given text, and we match the print punctuation. In the effort documented here, we take up basic text formatting such as italicized text (And, if less common, bolded and underlined text.)

    In order to display italics, for example, we learned to simply use basic html markup (e.g., <i>The Sound and the Fury<\/i>; then the closed captions must be saved as a .vtt file<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Post by M.A. Keller
    Research and proof of concept for The Junebugs<\/em> [animation] in v21n2 proof pages by Peter Powers, forthcoming.
    Markup\/conversion of Camille Dungy reading<\/a> (v20n2) by Peter Powers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Closed captions of recent readings we published contained book titles and\/or had other content that was italicized in print. Having moved on our initial questions on captioning poetry, we use published print text as our guide when creating closed captions for texts read at public in-person or Zoom events. We have decided to indicate, for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1093,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1093"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":265,"date":"2020-10-28T16:46:29","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T16:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/?p=265"},"modified":"2020-10-28T16:46:31","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T16:46:31","slug":"working-questions-for-fall-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/2020\/10\/28\/working-questions-for-fall-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Working Questions for Fall 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

    HTML<strike> tag is deprecated. Should we use <s> or CSS text decoration <\/em>for poems that employ struck-through text as part of their visual presentation? How does deprecated code (like <strike>) affect the way we need to address archival texts? We have at least one John Allman story that had struck-through text as part of its forward presentation. Are there others?

    For the moment, we have set the poem in question for v19n2 with the <s> tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    HTML<strike> tag is deprecated. Should we use <s> or CSS text decoration for poems that employ struck-through text as part of their visual presentation? How does deprecated code (like <strike>) affect the way we need to address archival texts? We have at least one John Allman story that had struck-through text as part of its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":849,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/849"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":240,"date":"2020-01-09T11:52:38","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T16:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/?p=240"},"modified":"2020-01-09T11:52:38","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T16:52:38","slug":"determining-best-practice-for-filler-words-in-captions-and-transcripts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/birdlab\/2020\/01\/09\/determining-best-practice-for-filler-words-in-captions-and-transcripts\/","title":{"rendered":"Determining Best Practice for Filler Words in Captions and Transcripts"},"content":{"rendered":"

    When I routinely did audio editing early in the journal’s history, I was fairly aggressive in my edits; my goal would be to remove as many filler words as possible, not just “um” and “er” but words and phrases such as “like” or “you know” or a\u00a0 bridging “so . . . . ” or “and . . . .” where a pause to gather a thought followed.<\/p>\n

    Sometimes a speaker would talk so rapidly and use so many fillers, that it became impossible to remove fillers, as it so “sped up” the speech in the edited audio file<\/p>\n

    This has come up again in transcripts where there are filler words that have not been (or cannot be) edited from the audio. Contributors (and copyeditors\/production editors) are asking if we can eliminate filler words from captions and transcripts. That would have been my sense of our ideal editorial practice, but this is not overtly covered in our style manual and, if ever present elsewhere, seems lost in training materials, so we have wobbled in practice and mean to get this into our style manual as soon as possible, and to make some mending changes to texts in v18n2.<\/p>\n

    Likewise for questions of transcribing dialect or informalities of speech; we would NOT traditionally write “wonna” or “gonna” but would transcribe them as “want to” and “going to.” We likewise would not attempt to represent regional dialects, though this is actually called for by the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP)<\/em>\u00a0Captioning Key.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0I will post separately about this question in future.<\/p>\n

    I have looked at the following resources as a step toward recommending our best practices. Under each link, I’ve quoted selected text from the destination site to give some sense of a take on the issue, but I recommend that you visit each site to see context and fuller descriptions. These texts are not in universal agreement as the question of whether or not to edit filler words may depend (as in legal uses) on the the circumstance, audience, or preference of a given company or publication.<\/p>\n

    I’ve opened with GoTranscript’s distinction between “full verbatim” and “clean verbatim” as I think it is helpful and orienting; the other resources, at this writing, are in no particular order, though I do stronly suggest all those interested track down a copy of Sean Zdenek’s Reading Sounds <\/em>where chapter two takes up a discussion of style guides and addresses verbatim captioning.\u00a0\u00a0Zdenek helpfully confirms that “Style guides are light on theory; individual guidelines are typically offered up as truths in no need of justification.” This is important to remember in any search for “authoratative” answers.<\/p>\n

    (This research is in progress and I may add to our list of resources in the coming weeks.)<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n

    GoTranscript Transcription Guidelines<\/strong><\/a>
    \nGoTranscript [transcription service]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    TEXT FORMAT DESCRIPTIONS<\/strong><\/div>\n
    FULL VERBATIM<\/strong><\/div>\n
    The text is transcribed\u00a0exactly<\/strong>\u00a0as it sounds and includes\u00a0all<\/strong>\u00a0the utterances of the speakers.<\/div>\n
    Those are:<\/strong><\/div>\n