Lesson plan

Presentation semantics

In computer science, particularly in human-computer interaction, presentation semantics specify how a particular piece of a formal language is displayed or represented in a distinguished manner accessible to human senses, usually human vision. For example, saying that ... must render the text between these constructs using some bold typeface is a specification of presentation semantics for that syntax. Many markup languages, including HTML, DSSSL, and XSL-FO, have presentation semantics, but others, such as XML, do not. Character encoding standards, such as Unicode, also have presentation semantics. One of the main goals of style sheet languages is to separate the syntax that defines document content from the syntax endowed with presentation semantics. This is the norm on the World Wide Web, where the Cascading Style Sheets language provides a large collection of presentation semantics for HTML documents.

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Article summary

In computer science, particularly in human-computer interaction, presentation semantics specify how a particular piece of a formal language is displayed or represented in a distinguished manner accessible to human senses, usually human vision. For example, saying that ... must render the text between these constructs using some bold typeface is a specification of presentation semantics for that syntax. Many markup languages, including HTML, DSSSL, and XSL-FO, have presentation semantics, but others, such as XML, do not. Character encoding standards, such as Unicode, also have presentation semantics. One of the main goals of style sheet languages is to separate the syntax that defines document content from the syntax endowed with presentation semantics. This is the norm on the World Wide Web, where the Cascading Style Sheets language provides a large collection of presentation semantics for HTML documents.

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Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.