ORA-DM-NOTATION-ITALICS

Consistency of style, within a document and between documents, is 
important.

For example, in the Data Model document there are two different styles 
of definition. One style is [Definition: here is the definition.] The 
other style is to italicize the defined word - for example, the 
definitions of "document" and "fragment" in section 4 "Nodes" second 
paragraph. Note that elsewhere in the same document, for the most part, 
italics serves other purposes than definition: to indicate distinguished 
values ("valid" "invalid" and "notKnown" in 3.6 "Mapping PSV Infoset 
additions to Types" second paragraph) or emphasis ("If the validity 
property *does not exist*..." later in the same section).

If there is a semantic difference behind the two styles, there should be 
a clear reason why some definitions use the more formal "[Definition: 
here is the definition.]" style, while others just use italics. And the 
document should explain the two conventions and the reasons for having 
both of them.

Received on Tuesday, 24 June 2003 18:02:55 UTC