The TEI Header

The header consits of four parts:

• a file description, <fileDesc>, containing a full bibliographical description of the computer file itself, from which proper bibliographic citation can be derived. The file description includes information about the source or sources from which the electronic text was derived.
• an encoding description, <encodingDesc>, which describes the relationship between an electronic text and its source or sources. It allows for detailed description of whether (or how) the text was normalized during transcription, how the encoder resolved ambiguities in the source, what levels of encoding or analysis were applied, and similar matters.
• a text profile, <profileDesc>, containing classificatory and contextual information about the text, such as its subject matter, the situation in which it was produced, the individuals described by or participating in producing it, and so forth. Such a text profile is of particular use in highly structured composite texts such as corpora or language collections, where it is often highly desirable to enforce a controlled descriptive vocabulary or to perform retrievals from a body of text in terms of text type or origin.
• a revision history, <revisionDesc>, which allows the encoder to provide a history of changes made during the development of the electronic text. The revision history is important for version control and for resolving questions about the history of a file.