General Introduction
This “Tag Library” is provided as a service to users
of ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2011, JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite; the Tag Library is not part of NISO Z39.96. It contains non-normative information that is intended
to be helpful to users of NISO Z39.96, including:
- Remarks on usage and relationships among elements and attributes;
- Structural Diagrams, showing the element hierarchy;
- Tagging examples;
- Best practice recommendations;
- Implementation advice;
- Discussion of accessibility and the Tag Suite; and
- Pointers to (non-normative) downloadable versions of DTDs, XSDs, and RNGs that implement the NISO JATS Tag Sets.
The intent of the Journal Article Tag Suite is to provide a common format in which
publishers and archives can exchange journal content. The Suite provides a set of XML schema
modules that define elements and attributes for describing the textual and graphical content of
journal articles as well as some non-article material such as letters, editorials, and book and
product reviews.
Introduction to the Article Authoring Tag Set
Rationale
The Article Authoring Tag Set (“Authoring”) creates a standardized format for new journal articles that
can be used by authors to submit publications to journals and to archives such as PubMed
Central. While in theory the document scope is the same as for the Publishing Tag Set, in
practice Authoring defines elements and attributes that describe the content of typical
research-style journal articles.
This is a Tag Set optimized for authorship of new journal articles, where regularization
and control of content is important, and where it is useful rather than harmful to have only
one way to tag a structure. Therefore, Authoring is more prescriptive than descriptive and
includes many elements whose content must occur in a specified order.
Since an author is assumed to be creating and submitting an article for submission to a
journal or journals, no publishing history or journal-specific information has been included in
this Authoring Tag Set.
Since no assumptions can be made concerning the processing software or editorial situation
that will receive an article authored in this Tag Set, tagging that forces specific formatting
has also been avoided. There is no way for an author to number his/her lists explicitly, for
example, or to manually number the cited references, since many journals have their own
citation policies and publication styles. Numbers for the cited references must be generated by
the publisher’s software to match editorial policy and established practice.
Scope
By design, this is a model for journal articles, such as the typical research article
found in an STM journal, and not a model for complete journals. This Tag Set does not include
an overarching model for a collection of articles. In addition, the following journal material
is not described by this Tag Set:
- Company, product, or service display advertising
- Job search or classified advertising
- Calendars, meeting schedules, and conference announcements (except as these can be tagged as ordinary articles, sub-articles, or sections within articles)
- Material specific to an individual journal, such as Author Guidelines, Policy and Scope statements, editorial or advisory boards, detailed indicia, etc.
Structural Overview
The Article Authoring Tag Set defines a document that is a top-level component of a
journal such as an article, a book or product review, or a letter to the editor. Each such
document is composed of one or more parts; if there is more than one part, they must appear in
the following order:
- Front matter (required). The article front matter contains the metadata for the article (also called article header information), for example, the article title, the names of the contributor(s), and the abstract. This is not textual front matter as appears in books, rather this is bibliographic information about the article.
- Body of the article (required). The body of the article is the main textual and graphic content of the article. This usually consists of paragraphs and sections, which may themselves contain figures, tables, sidebars (boxed text), etc.
- Back matter for the article (optional). If present, the article back matter contains information that is ancillary to the main text, such as a glossary, appendix, or list of cited references.
Tag Sets Developed from the Suite
XML schemas (DTDs, XSDs, and RNGs) are provided for 2 different variations of the Authoring Tag Set:
- Authoring Tag Set using XHTML tables and MathML 2.0
- Authoring Tag Set using XHTML tables and MathML 3.0
This Authoring Tag Set is one of several created from the Suite. Information about the other Tag
Sets may be found at the following site: http://jats.nlm.nih.gov.
How to Read This Tag Library
Terms and Definitions
Element | Elements are nouns, like “speech” and “speaker”, that
represent components of journal articles, the articles themselves, and accompanying
metadata. |
|---|---|
Attribute | Attributes hold facts about an element, such as which type of list (e.g., numbered,
bulleted, or plain) is being requested when using the List (<list>) tag, or the name of a
pointer to an external file that contains an image. Each attribute has both a name (e.g.,
@list-type) and a value (e.g.,
“bullet”). |
Metadata | Data about the data, for example, bibliographic
information. The distinction is between metadata elements which describe an article (such as author and the title of the article) versus elements which
contain the textual and graphical content of the article. |
How To Start Using This Tag Library
How you use the documentation will depend on what you need to learn about the modules and
this Tag Set.
Learn this Tag Set
If you want to learn about the elements and the attributes in this Tag Set so you can tag
documents or learn how the journal article model is constructed, here is a good way to start.
- Read the Tag Library General Introduction, taking particular note of the next section that describes the parts of the Tag Library so you will know what resources are available.
- If you do not know the symbols used in the Document Hierarchy diagrams, then read the “Key to the Near & Far® Diagrams”.
- Scan the Document Hierarchy diagrams to get a good sense of the top-level elements and their contents. (Find what is inside an <article>, now what is inside each of the three large pieces of an article, keep working your way down.)
- Pick an element from one of the diagrams. Look up the element in the Elements Section to find the full name of the element, its definition, usage notes, content allowed, and any attributes. Look up one of the attributes to find its full name, usage notes, and potential values.
Finally, if you are interested in conversion from a particular source:
- Look at an article in a printed or online journal or look at the DTD/schema for the
other journal.
- Can all the information you want to store from an article fit into the models shown in the diagrams?
- Do you have, or know how to get, all the information the models require? Will that information always be available for documents that are complete and correct?
- How difficult will it be to identify the parts of the information using the elements and attributes described in these models? Would changes to one or more models make this easier?
- Now look at some non-article content, such as a news column, a book review, or some letters to the editor. Are there tags to handle all these article types and all their components?
Structure of This Tag Library
This Tag Library contains the following sections:
How To Use (Read Me First) | How to make best use of this Tag Library to reference XML tags, become familiar with
the Authoring Tag Set as a whole, or see examples of recommended usage. |
|---|---|
Root Element | Naming the <article> element as the root of this XML schema (DTD, XSD, RNG). |
General Introduction | This introduction to the contents of this Tag Library, to the design
philosophy and intended usage of the JATS DTD Suite, and to the Article Authoring Tag Set. |
Selecting a Model & Schema | Describing the variant JATS schemas and how to choose the right one for your implementation. |
Elements Section | Descriptions of the elements used in the Article Authoring Tag Set and the parts of the
JATS DTD Suite used in this Tag Set. The element descriptions are listed in
alphabetical order by tag name. [Note: Each element has two names: a “tag name” (formally called an
element-type name) that is used in tagged documents, in the DTDs/schemas, and by XML
software; and an “element name” (usually longer) that provides a fuller, more
descriptive name for the benefit of human readers. For example, a tag name might be
<disp-quote> with the corresponding element
name Quote, Displayed, or a tag name might be
<verse-group> with the corresponding element
name Verse Form for Poetry.] |
Attributes Section | Descriptions of the attributes in the Article Authoring Tag Set. Like elements,
attributes also have two names: the shorter machine-readable one and a (usually longer)
human-readable one. Attributes are listed in order by the shorter, machine-readable names.
For example, the attribute short name @list-type instead of the more informal, easier to read: Type of List. |
Parameter Entities Section | Names (with occasional descriptions) and contents of the parameter entities in
the JATS DTD modules. |
Document Hierarchy Diagrams | Tree-like graphical representations of the content of many elements. This can be a
fast, visual way to determine the structure of an article or of any element within an
article. |
Full Article Sample | One full article is provided in both PDF format and in XML according to this Tag Set.
This is provided to help users understand the relationship between the article as displayed
and the XML version of the article. |
Common Tagging Practice | Tips, tricks, hints, and examples of how (and why) to tag certain structures using this
Tag Set. |
Accessibility | Brief description of how NISO JATS approaches the 508 and WCAG 2.0 Accessibility
issues. |
Modifying This Tag Set | Implementor’s instructions for using this Tag Set, customizing this Tag Set, or
making derivative tag sets based on this one. |
Version 1.2d1 Change Report | Pointer to the description of the changes made in response to the public
comments on the JATS Standing Committee Draft Versions 1.1 received through April 10, 2017, that resulted in this NISO JATS version 1.2d2 Tag Set (Z39.96-2015). |
Element Context Table | A listing of where each element may be used. All elements in this Tag Set are given in a
single alphabetical list. The Element Context Table is formatted in two columns. The first column (“This
Element”) names an element, with the name shown in pointy brackets. In the second
column (“May Be Contained In”) for each element is an alphabetical list of
all the elements in which the first column element may occur. For example, if the first
column contains the element <front> and the
second column contains only the <article>
element, this means that the <front> element
may only be used directly inside an <article>.
Most elements may be used inside more than one other element. For example, the element
<def> (a definition) may be used inside the
<abbrev> and the <def-item> elements. The Element Context Table contains the same information that is found on each element
page under the heading “This element may be contained in:”. |
Index | Where to find elements, tags, and terms used in this Tag Library. Includes synonyms
(terms not used in this Tag Set) that direct the reader to
elements used in this Tag Library; for example, “author” is paired with
Contributor <contrib>. |
Supporting Documentation Home | The Article Authoring Tag Set is available in three forms: an XML Document Type
Definition (DTD), a W3C XML Schema (XSD), and a RELAX NG Schema (RNG). Each of these formats
is available in two forms: a zipped file containing a downloadable version of the schema
(often in multiple files), and a readable/browsable version in which the internal markup has
been escaped. |
Tag Library Typographic Conventions
| <alt-text> | The tag name of an element (written in lower case with the entire name surrounded by “< >”) |
| Alternate Text Name (for a figure, etc.) | The element name (long descriptive name of an element) or the descriptive name of an attribute (written in title case, with important words capitalized, and the words separated by spaces) |
| @name | The “@” sign before a name indicates an attribute name. |
| must not | Emphasis to stress a point |