United States Congress Data Dictionary of Legislative Documents |
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| Element Name: | section | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description: | A hierarchical structure of a measure. This is usually the top level contained with the legislative body. Levels contained within sections are subsections, paragraphs, subparagraphs, clauses, subclauses, items, and subitems. Sections are normally enumerated with a numeric value followed by a period (e.g., 1.). The formatting of a section (structure of legislation) will be according to the rules of the style (such as OLC style or United States Code Style) in effect. The style will control such display issues as the fonts and highlighting used, the margins, and the indentation levels. The style (and the numerical order of the section (structure of legislation) within its containing structure) will also control generation of text, for example, the word “Section”, “Sec.”, or “ยง” before the enumerator and any punctuation or spacing surrounding or following the enumerator. In so doing, the style will ensure that a period always follows the abbreviation “Sec”, but not the word “Section”, and that the appropriate punctuation follows the enumerator. Accordingly, such punctuation will not be keyed and will not be part of the data. Any necessary punctuation and spaces following the header will also be generated for display or printing. For example, when a section (structure of legislation) follows OLC style, a generated period will follow the header. |
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| Bills DTD Content Model: | (enum?, header?, (text | appropriations–para*)?, (quoted–block | graphic | formula | toc | table | list)*, (subsection* | paragraph* | committee–appointment–paragraph*), continuation–text?) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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