a few small formatting and grammar changes (#1)

- a few small formatting and grammar changes (01c0554cdc1c4fa848fa497fe8139a62faa63326)


Co-authored-by: Daniel van Strien <[email protected]>

README.md

@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ task_ids:
 
 ### Dataset Summary
 
-The Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts is a collection of texts on various subject matter published between 1640 and 1740  a time that is marked by the rise of mass publication, the development of a public discourse in many areas of everyday life and, last but not least, the standardisation of British English. Each text belongs to one of the following genres:  Law, Economy, Religion, Poitics, Science, Miscellaneous
+The Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts is a collection of texts on various subject matter published between 1640 and 1740,  a time that was marked by the rise of mass publication, the development of public discourse in many areas of everyday life and last but not least, the standardisation of British English. Each text belongs to one of the following genres:  Law, Economy, Religion, Politics, Science, Miscellaneous
 
 ### Supported Tasks and Leaderboards
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ The text in the dataset is British English. The associated BCP-47 code is `en-GB
 
 ### Data Instances
 
-A typical data point contains an id, a text, the head of the text (which can be missing on some occasions) and the title. The two features which can be used for classification are `date`, which is the year of publication and `genre` which classifies the text into one of six broad areas
+A typical data point contains an id, a text, the head of the text (which can be missing on some occasions) and the title. The two features which can be used for classification are `date`, which is the year of publication and `genre` which classifies the text into one of six broad areas.
 ```
 {
 'id': 'SciB1735', 
@@ -84,16 +84,15 @@ head': 'A DEFENCE OF FREE-THINKING IN Mathematics; &c.\n',
 
 ### Data Fields
 
-```
-{
-                "id": Unique identifier("string"),
-                "text": ext in the document("string"),
-                "date": Date of publication("string"),
-                "genre": Broad classification("string"),
-                "head": Often same as title. Can be missing("string"),
-                "title": Title of document("string")
-}
-```
+The dataset contains the following fields: 
+
+- `id`: Unique identifier("string"),
+- `text`: ext in the document("string"),
+- `date`: Date of publication("string"),
+- `genre`: Broad classification("string"),
+- `head`: Often same as title. Can be missing("string"),
+- `title`: Title of document("string")
+
 
 ### Data Splits
 
@@ -103,7 +102,7 @@ Train: 120
 
 ### Curation Rationale
 
-The period covered by the Lampeter Corpus, 1640 to 1740, marks a crucial period in English history as well as in the elaboration of English as a multi-purpose language. The texts selected for the corpus reflect both the standardisation process of English and historical developments between the outbreak of the Civil War and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In order to meet the needs of linguists and historians alike, the Lampeter project has made an effort to create a balanced corpus rather than a randomly chosen archive or collection. A balanced corpus, then, is characterised by a number of transparent sampling criteria
+The period covered by the Lampeter Corpus, 1640 to 1740, marks a crucial period in English history and the elaboration of English as a multi-purpose language. The texts selected for the corpus reflect the standardisation process of English and historical developments between the outbreak of the Civil War and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. To meet the needs of linguists and historians alike, the Lampeter project has attempted to create a balanced corpus rather than a randomly chosen archive or collection. A balanced corpus, then, is characterised by several transparent sampling criteria.
 
 ### Source Data
 
@@ -112,9 +111,9 @@ The period covered by the Lampeter Corpus, 1640 to 1740, marks a crucial period
 The original data is selected according to the following criteria:
 - Complete texts only, including dedications, prefaces, postscripts, etc.
 - Texts are of varying length, ranging from c. 3,000 to c. 20,000 words.
-- Each author appears only once, in order to avoid idiosyncratic language use.
-- Major literary figures of the time were excluded since their style of writing can be studied in other, already existing, collections.
-- Generally only first editions of the texts; later editions only if changes were made by the original authors, thus ensuring the authenticity of the language.
+- Each author appears only once to avoid idiosyncratic language use.
+- Major literary figures of the time were excluded since their writing style can be studied in other, existing collections.
+- Generally, only first editions of the texts; later editions only if changes were made by the original authors, thus ensuring the authenticity of the language.
 
 #### Who are the source language producers?