> All the examples I can find are based on attributes.

just remove the @ and the examples should work.


> I want to select only the major recommendations that are not completed to


so if that had been

<recommendation completed="no">

That would be

select="recommendation[@completed='no']">
                       ^

but as it's

<recommendation>
  <completed>no</completed>

then it is 

select="recommendation[completed='no']">
                       ^

a major aim in XPath design is that attributes and elements are treated
in the same way as far as possible.

David

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