XML attribute vs XML element

Question

At work we are being asked to create XML files to pass data to another offline application that will then create a second XML file to pass back in order to update some of ou

Answer 1

How about taking advantage of our hard earned object orientation intuition? I usually find it is straight forward to think which is an object and which is an attribute of the object or which object it is referring to.

Whichever intuitively make sense as objects shall fit in as elements. Its attributes (or properties) would be attributes for these elements in xml or child element with attribute.

I think for simpler cases like in the example object orientation analogy works okay to figure out which is element and which is attribute of an element.