Abstract and Table of Contents

In the context of my UNT based PhD course work, I had several interesting discussions about the applicability of certain Dublin Core elements to certain types of materials. The conversation came around to indexing journal articles, generally a DCMIType: Text using Dublin Core. It was overtly stated that the Dublin Core element tableOfContents (dcterms name space), was not applicable to the material type (journal articles). I strongly disagree, as does also examples present in the literature (Citation: Habing et al., 2001) Habing, T., Cole, T. & Mischo, W. (2001). Qualified dublin core using RDF for sci-tech journal articles. In International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, DC-2001, October 24-26. (pp. pp. 242–246). NII. Retrieved from https://dcpapers.dublincore.org/pubs/article/view/665 .

In comparison with an abstract, sometimes a table of contents for an article can deliver a substantial understanding of what it is about. A table of contents displays an article’s structure. In fact many law review articles actually include a table of contents prior to the main part of the article. Law review articles can be over 70 pages in length. An outline offers useful information to the potential reader. The principle applies to linguistic articles as well. Below is an example of an outline from a linguistics article (Citation: Roberts, 2011) Roberts, D. (2011). A tone orthography typology. Written Language & Literacy, 14(1). 82–108. https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.14.1.05rob .

One of the exercises that we have gone through is to think about metadata in terms of about-ness and is-ness. It is interestin to think that if an abstract is a sample of about-ness, then a table of contents is sample if is-ness.

1. Introduction
2. The six parameters
2.1 First parameter: Domain
2.2 Second parameter: Target
2.2.1 Tones
2.2.2 Grammar
2.2.3 Lexicon
2.2.4 Dual strategies
2.3 Third parameter: Symbol
2.3.1 Phonographic representations
2.3.2 Semiographic representations
2.4 Fourth parameter: Position
2.5 Fifth parameter: Density
2.5.1 Introduction
2.5.2 Zero density
2.5.3 Partial density
2.5.4 Exhaustive density
2.6 Sixth parameter: Depth
2.6.1 Introduction
2.6.2 Surface representation
2.6.3 Deep representation
2.6.4 Shallow (transparent) representation
3. Conclusion
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliographical references

References