<item identifier="INTRO" identifierref="RESOURCE_INTRO"> <title>Introduction</title> </item>In the XMLDOM the text "Introduction" IS a node (i.e. a child node of title). The nodetype is NODE_TEXT and this type always has a nodename of '#Text'. If you have text present in an element it's always going to show up this way when you walk the DOM and the appearance of your treeview is technically correct. If you don't want these nodes to show up I suppose you could just remove these nodes from the document.