> 
> 
> if i have a note elemtn that can be placed in side many 
> different elements 
> within an xml document e.g.
> 
> Is there anyway i can reduce this code down because i have 
> this implemented 
> on a much larger scale where the note element appears within 
> 28-30 other 
> elements. Is there anyway to reproduce the output which the 
> design above 
> creates without having to write out <ul> tags within each 
> template match?
> 

Try

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">


<xsl:template match="/">
<ul>
<xsl:apply-templates select="//note" />
</ul>
</xsl:template>



<xsl:template match="note">
<li><xsl:value-of select="." /></li>
</xsl:template>


<xsl:template match="*|@*">
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list