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<sec> Section

Headed group of material; the basic structural unit of the body of a document.

Usage/Remarks

A very short article may contain nothing but paragraphs (and other paragraph-level elements such as figures and tables), but most journal articles are divided into sections, each with a title that describes the content of the section, such as “Introduction”, “Methodology”, or “Conclusions”.
A section must have some sort of title, so that, for example, a Table of Contents can be automatically generated. Therefore, this Tag Set requires that a section be tagged with (minimally) either a <title> or a <label>. A section may be tagged with both.
Sections are recursive, that is, various levels of sections are indicated by containment, not by different names for the subsections. A <sec> element may contain lower level sections that are also tagged using the <sec> element, not tagged explicitly as <sec2>, <sec3>, or <subsec1>, etc.

Common Practice

The <sec> element can be used within <back> to tag material that has not been explicitly named as one of the other back matter components, that is, it is not named as an appendix, an acknowledgment, a glossary, etc. For example, tables are frequently placed in the back matter, with no other designation than a label such as “Table 6”, or a title such as “Epochs of Geologic Time”.
Attributes
sec-type
specific-use

Base Attributes

id
xml:base
xml:lang
Models and Context
May be contained in
<abstract>, <ack>, <answer>, <app>, <back>, <bio>, <body>, <boxed-text>, <explanation>, <notes>, <option>, <question>, <question-preamble>, <sec>, <trans-abstract>
Description
The following, in order:
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  sec          %sec-model;                                  >
Expanded Content Model

(sec-meta?, ((label, title?) | title), (address | alternatives | answer | answer-set | array | block-alternatives | boxed-text | chem-struct-wrap | code | explanation | fig | fig-group | graphic | media | preformat | question | question-wrap | question-wrap-group | supplementary-material | table-wrap | table-wrap-group | disp-formula | disp-formula-group | def-list | list | tex-math | mml:math | p | related-article | related-object | disp-quote | speech | statement | verse-group)*, (sec)*, (fn-group | glossary | ref-list)*)

Tagged Samples
Nested sections in <body> 
<article dtd-version="1.3">
 <front>...</front>
 <body>
  <sec sec-type="intro">
   <title>Introduction</title>
   <p>Geriatric day hospitals developed rapidly in the United Kingdom
    in the 1960s as an important component of care provision. The model
    has since been widely applied in several Western countries. Day
    hospitals provide multidisciplinary assessment and rehabilitation
    in an outpatient setting and have a pivotal position between hospital
    and home based services ... We therefore undertook a systematic
    review of the randomized trials of day hospital care.</p>
  </sec>
  <sec sec-type="methods">
   <title>Methods</title>
   <p>The primary question addressed was ...</p>
   <sec>
    <title>Inclusion criteria</title>
    <p>We set out to identify all ...</p>
   </sec>
   <sec>
    <title>Search strategy</title>
    <p>We searched for ...</p>
   </sec>
   ...
  </sec>
 </body>
 ...
</article>
Sectional <abstract> 
<article dtd-version="1.3">
 <front>
  <journal-meta>...</journal-meta>
  <article-meta>
   ...
   <permissions>
    <copyright-statement>Copyright &#x00A9; 1999, British
     Medical Journal</copyright-statement>
    <copyright-year>1999</copyright-year>
   </permissions>
   <abstract abstract-type="section">
    <sec>
     <title>Objective</title>
     <p>To examine the effectiveness of day hospital attendance
      in prolonging independent living for elderly people.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec>
     <title>Design</title>
     <p>Systematic review of 12 controlled clinical trials 
      (available by January 1997) comparing day hospital care with
      comprehensive care (five trials), domiciliary care (four trials),
      or no comprehensive care (three trials).</p>
    </sec>
    <sec>
     <title>Subjects</title>
     <p>2867 elderly people.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec>
     <title>Main outcome measures</title>
     <p>Death, institutionalisation, disability, global &#x201C;poor
      outcome,&#x201D; and use of resources.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec>
     <title>Results</title>
     <p>Overall, there was no significant difference between day 
      hospitals and alternative services for death, disability, or 
      use of resources. However, ...</p>
    </sec>
    <sec>
     <title>Conclusions</title>
     <p>Day hospital care seems to be an effective service for 
      elderly people ...</p>
     <p><boxed-text position="float">
      <sec><title>Key messages</title>
       <p>...</p>
      </sec>
     </boxed-text></p>
    </sec>
   </abstract>
  </article-meta>
 </front>
...
</article>
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