Dr. Baehr says: “Briefly discuss methods of separating presentation and content in your projects. What tools, guidelines and standards are you using for developing both? How will you integrate the two in the final product?”
Update 5.17.11
Separating presentation and content, or form and content in my XML-based single sourcing project is achieved by use of separating the content into XML code and the form or presentation of that content into CSS and DTD.
Separating form and content in my annotated bibliography of a survey of science journal articles doesn't seem to occur so readily in my mind. Beyond a simple copy/paste of text from the Word doc this survey will eventually end up in, a separation between form and content isn't so apparent as in my XML-based project.
On the macro level for separation of form and content, the document produced for this project will be archived in my Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 information system library folder for documents used for this class, where information on this document will be readily available to be repurposed into my thesis, located in another folder archived in my online library.
Separating presentation and content in my projects requires collecting and organizing the appropriate text content only (not graphics) about HPV, specifically in men, from my three legacy documents. Legacy documents include two different formats: web-based formatting for the CDC and Planned Parenthood websites, and scholarly text formatting from my virology term paper.
All collected text has been gathered into one Microsoft Word document and labeled according to original source. Currently, I am writing new scholarly text comparing information from all three documents in the same “worksheet” style document, referencing original material. The result is separation of presentation and content from the websites; however, my original content from the virology term paper is not separated from its original formatting type of scholarly text, although it is separated from the original document.
Writing new text from original text is my most familiar tool for creating the new presentation of the web-based project. CISER’s Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) single-sourcing platform is also another familiar tool I’m using for keeping all my libraries for this project, as well as for creating the new text and web-based, single-sourced projects. I login to my database to write text instead of opening a Word doc on my laptop.
As I write new text comparing information about HPV in men from government (CDC), NPO (Planned Parenthood), and science (virology term paper) sources, subcategories in the topic are becoming more apparent to me, like “Gardasil”, “Protection”, “Cancers”, and “History”. Possibilities for these subcategories may include becoming metadata tags and/or Quick Launch menu items for use in my web-based project.
If I can learn enough XML to complete the single-sourcing project, XML may become a tool for the project’s creation, but if not, the use of CISER Community Network Portal (C2NP), which contains WSS 3.0, to produce the web-based project will increase my skills in my job. Still, use of XML will allow more separation of presentation and content; learning new skills is also part of my job. Presently, I am unable to predict what tools I will use for my web-based project.
Most of my guidelines and standards for development of the web-based project are determined by the TTU Web-Identity Guidelines since this project is being developed in the TTU master template as a work and student research project. My own guidelines for the web-based project are the practice of minimalism; for my scholarly text, my guideline is continual testing for understanding and comprehension of the interdisciplinary language I am continuing to develop for communication between my technical communicator and science faculty committee members. Testing includes constructive reading and critiquing of my text and web-based project by several members of both fields at varying levels of expertise.
Although I have physically separated presentation and content of the legacy documents in cyberspace, my immediate production of new comparative text coincided with my mind’s attempting to organize the new subcategories into one webpage of logically mapped information and graphics. I draw my mental organization maps on paper first, using color coding to help me better categorize my subcategories. I truly resonated with Clark’s observation that “even when content and presentation are separated, they do not remain separated, and arguably were never separated to begin with.” (Clark, 51).
Clark D. (2008) “Content management and the separation of presentation and content”, TCQ, 17(1), 35-60.
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