[Cheryl Sintay]

Hello!  I am working on my manuscript for literary certification, and I feel pretty confident except for one issue.  I apologize in advance if this is a silly question, but I’m having trouble finding the answer in the course materials or in the Formats documents.

I know if there are headings and subheadings (and sub subheadings) in the material being brailled, you are supposed to make the main heading a “centered heading,” the subheading is a “cell 5” heading, and the sub subheading is “cell 7.”  My question is, how do you treat the chapter number and title in terms of heading hierarchy?  The two options I’m wrestling with:

1. Does the chapter info, which is treated as centered headings, count then as the main heading as well?  And headings/subheadings throughout the body of the material are cell 5 and cell 7?
2. Or do you center the chapter information and then also center the main level of headings throughout the material?

There are only two levels of headings in the body of the material (not counting the chapter number/titles), if that makes a difference.

Thank you!

Cheri

[Cindi Laurent]

Thank you for being honest that this is for your manuscript.  As such, I cannot give you a specific answer.  But I can tell you some general things about headings.  According to 4.2 in Braille Formats, “centered headings are used to represent the print headings of major sections of the text, and cell 5 and cell 7 headings are used to represent the print headings for subsections shown within major sections”.  There is no rule that says “this type of print MUST be this type of heading”.  It is up to the transcriber to determine, based on the material being transcribed, what is a major heading and what is a sub heading.  I would suggest reading carefully through section 4 of Braille Formats for more information (and examples) on headings.   Then decide how you will do your headings and be consistent.

As a side note, I’m doing a webinar on headings this Friday 🙂  1:00 Eastern.  There is a blog about it on the website.

Cindi

[Cheryl Sintay]

Thank you, Cindi!  I appreciate your response… Knowing that it’s not a cut-and-dried thing actually helps a lot.  I was worried I was overlooking the obvious answer somewhere, but now that I know I’m not, I will evaluate the source material and use my best judgment to decide how to present it in my manuscript.

And I haven’t participated in any of the webinars yet– honestly I felt like most of them would be too advanced for where I was in learning the basics of braille transcription.  But the one this Friday sounds very useful, so I will try to check it out! 🙂

Thank you!!

Cheri

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