XML / XSL

I am a total rookie so forgive my ignorance in advance. 

I am (trying) to use XSLT to transform XML output from my Filemaker database so that I can re-import it (to synchronize the data after it has been copy-edited externally).
The whole business works fine with one exception. In the xml file, some text has visual tags such as <hi rend="italic"></hi>. 

The xslt does not bring this tagging into the transformed file. I have tried using
<xsl:copy-of select="note"/> and
<xsl:value-of select="note"/>

either one of these brings the text perfectly, but not the <hi> tags.

ideas?

I'm using oXygen 12.2 and FMProAdvanced 11.
thanks!