The XML formatting was more restrictive than what I’m used to. I missed being able to add certain characteristics that weren’t built into our schema (italics, bold, etc.). That slowed my writing down to a crawl, but overall, it was an interesting way to organize thoughts. Paired tags made it easy to locate material and view metadata (like number of authors and revision number). It ties in well with version control too. I like that we had our own associated document, so I could just update mine and not accidentally break others’ documents (like I did on co-op). I’ve only used Git for tracking code, but I could see myself using it more for creative/technical writing, especially for stories to see how they change overtime (and cringe at how they started out…).
I didn’t like that the schema was set so that the background tag was required before the summary (and other related positional constraints) because sometimes I prefer to give a brief description tied to the summary first and then lead into the source. Sometimes variety makes a more interesting read. Viewing XML, at least in the process of writing it, wasn’t as clear-cut as just using a regular word processor. For example, I kept clicking the indent button so that my text wouldn’t run off screen. Hmm, I’m sure there’s a way to set that though. I don’t mind using Oxygen for future assignments; I’m just more familiar writing differently, so it’ll just take a bit of time to learn shortcuts to create a steady workflow.
On a related note, annotated bibliographies provide a good reference for both the composer and others to review sources and see how they relate to current projects. With that in mind, structuring it with XML makes it easy for others to get a sense of our thought. It’s especially useful for peer reviewing later since our different concentrations shape how we write.
