The TEI Guidelines cover some 500 predefined elements organized in modules. A TEI module groups together associated TEI elements such as the TEI elements recommended for the encoding of drama or dictionaries. There are also more general TEI modules which contain 'core' and 'header' elements -- basic elements most likely to be used in all TEI documents.

The following table contains a list of all TEI modules with links to the chapters of the TEI Guidelines where they are defined.

Module name	Formal public identifier	Corresponding TEI Chapter
analysis	Analysis and Interpretation	17 Simple Analytic Mechanisms
certainty	Certainty and Uncertainty	21 Certainty, Precision, and Responsibility
core	Common Core	3 Elements Available in All TEI Documents
corpus	Metadata for Language Corpora	15 Language Corpora
dictionaries	Print Dictionaries	9 Dictionaries
drama	Performance Texts	7 Performance Texts
figures	Tables, Formulae, Figures	14 Tables, Formulæ, Graphics and Notated Music
gaiji	Character and Glyph Documentation	5 Characters, Glyphs, and Writing Modes
header	Common Metadata	2 The TEI Header
iso-fs	Feature Structures	18 Feature Structures
linking	Linking, Segmentation, and Alignment	16 Linking, Segmentation, and Alignment
msdescription	Manuscript Description	10 Manuscript Description
namesdates	Names, Dates, People, and Places	13 Names, Dates, People, and Places
nets	Graphs, Networks, and Trees	19 Graphs, Networks, and Trees
spoken	Transcribed Speech	8 Transcriptions of Speech
tagdocs	Documentation Elements	22 Documentation Elements
tei	TEI Infrastructure	1 The TEI Infrastructure
textcrit	Text Criticism	12 Critical Apparatus
textstructure	Default Text Structure	4 Default Text Structure
transcr	Transcription of Primary Sources	11 Representation of Primary Sources
verse	Verse	6 Verse

As you can see, The TEI Guidelines are themselves quite massive. Finding your way around may be difficult at first. We'll be focusing on Chapter 9: Print Dictionaries, which will make your job somewhat easier.

As you go through this unit, you should also make sure you read through the Chapter 9 of the Guidelines. We'll be covering it section by section so you won't have to read the whole Chapter in one go.

Sometimes, however, it will be more useful for you to look up the declarations and examples of particular TEI elements, such as <entry>, <sense> or <def>. In those situations, instead of going through the dictionary chapter, it will be easier for you to consult the Appendix C of The Guidelines, which contains an alphabetic list of all the TEI Elements.

Tips

1. Create a bookmark in your browser for http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/REF-ELEMENTS.html and save it with an easy-to-remember name ("TEI Elements" or "TEI Reference") so that you can easily retrieve it while you are working on your dictionary.

2. Use the alphabetic navigation bar in the element reference list to display only elements starting with a given letter.

3. Create a different bookmark in your browser for the Dictionary Chapter

Further reading:

Elena Pierazzo, Modelling (Digital) Texts, in Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories, Models and Methods, 2015, http://hal.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/hal-01182162

Text Encoding Initiative, The TEI Infrastructure, http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ST.html