- From: Susan Lesch <lesch@w3.org>
- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 21:50:30 -0800
- To: www-rdf-comments@w3.org
Here are minor editorial comments for your "RDF Primer" Last Call Working Draft [1]. Minor typos, some global: s/web/Web/ s/web site/Web site/ s/web page/Web page/ s/web logs/Web logs/ s/webmasters/Webmasters/ s/web browsers/Web browsers/ s/N-triples/N-Triples/ s/tradeoff/trade-off/ s/ex:Motorvehicle/ex:MotorVehicle/ s/HTML Meta elements/HTML <code>meta</code> elements/ s/lower case/lowercase/ s/Copyright @ 1998 Eric Miller/Copyright © 1998 Eric Miller/ s/stylesheets/style sheets/ (when you mean CSS and not XSL) Please avoid we (see http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#ref-PRONOUNS). For example, you could say "Section 5.3 says more about this point" in place of "We will say more about this point in Section 5.3." Please avoid you (see http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#Translations). Omit <em> as much as possible in the prose. A little emphasis goes a long way. Reserve most italics for names of parts of the RDF language. Please use international examples, something like "Course 6.001 has the students Carlos, Phuong, Vasiliy, Maria, Mohamed, and Françoise" and "Piazza della Repubblica - 80122 Napoli, Italy" and "Musée du Louvre 75058 Paris Cedex 01." Use postal codes in place of ZIP codes. Please use only the IANA-registered domains example.com, example.net and example.org for examples per RFC 2606. An example of what could happen to dlib.org, wanderlust.com, geneontology.org et al. is available on request. I recommend skipping the prismstandard.org URIs and namespace discussion and concentrating on what PRISM does. If you need something evocative use a machine name something like http://DLIB-magazine.example.org and http://ratings.example.net I think if you plan to introduce concepts like URIs, URLs, HTML, XML, and namespaces (Appendixes A and B) that it would be worthwhile to introduce the terms semantics, syntax and schema, and maybe serialization so newcomers will know what each RDF spec does. You could this up front, in as few words as possible (say less than a sentence each). I would move the last part of the introduction starting with "The following documents contribute to the specification of RDF:" to the beginning. Due to the complexity of having six parts, readers need an introduction to the RDF specifications as much as to RDF. In 2.1, start out with URI not URL (so you don't have to undo that later). In 2.2, "qualified name (or QName)" needs a link to a reference for Namespaces in XML. Following are minor suggestions based on a quick read. I will try to read the Primer at a later maturity level hoping to catch everything. As noted earlier, the normative (i.e., definitive) RDF specification describing these concepts is the RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax [RDF-CONCEPTS], which should be consulted for further information. Together with the RDF Semantics [RDF-SEMANTICS] document, [RDF-CONCEPTS] provides the definition of the abstract syntax for RDF, together with its formal semantics (meaning). (two "together withs") could read: As noted earlier, the normative (i.e., definitive) RDF specification describing these concepts is the RDF Concepts and Abstract Syntax [RDF-CONCEPTS], which should be consulted for further information. The RDF Semantics [RDF-SEMANTICS] document provides RDF's formal semantics (meaning). This sentence is too long: This may be done either by modifying the RDF document in which the resource was originally described, to add the properties and values needed to describe the additional information, or, as this example illustrates, by creating a separate document, and providing the additional properties and values in rdf:Description elements that refer to the original resource via its URIref using rdf:about. it could read: This may be done either by modifying the RDF document in which the resource was originally described, to add the properties and values needed to describe the additional information. Or, as this example illustrates, a separate document could be created, providing the additional properties and values in rdf:Description elements that refer to the original resource via its URIref using rdf:about. 3.3 RDF/XML Summary can go before the examples to save the reader time. Its text: The examples above have illustrated some of the basic ideas behind the RDF/XML syntax. These examples provide enough information to enable you to begin writing useful RDF/XML. For a more thorough discussion of the principles behind the modeling of RDF statements in XML (known as striping), together with a presentation of the other RDF/XML abbreviations available, and other details and examples about writing RDF in XML, you should refer to the RDF/XML Syntax Specification [RDF-SYNTAX]. could read something like what follows. (Syntax has very little more information on striping, abbreviations and examples than the Primer.) The examples below illustrate some of the basic ideas behind the RDF/XML syntax. To go beyond this introduction, please refer to the normative RDF/XML Syntax Specification [RDF-SYNTAX]. Here's another long sentence: Moreover, depending on how the application interprets the property descriptions, a description of an instance might be considered valid either without some of the schema-specified properties (e.g., you might have an instance of ex:Book without an ex:author property, even if ex:author is described as having a domain of ex:Book), or with additional properties (you might describe an instance of ex:Book with an ex:technicalEditor property, even though you haven't described such a property in your particular schema.) It could read: Moreover, depending on how the application interprets the property descriptions, a description of an instance might be considered valid either with or without some of the schema-specified properties. For example, an instance of ex:Book might not have an ex:author property, even if ex:author is described as having a domain of ex:Book, or an instance of ex:Book might have an ex:technicalEditor property, even though it isn't described in a schema. [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-rdf-primer-20030123/ Best wishes for your project, -- Susan Lesch http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/ mailto:lesch@w3.org tel:+1.858.483.4819 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) http://www.w3.org/
Received on Monday, 24 February 2003 00:50:40 UTC