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Subject:Re: Front Matter From:"Michael West" <mike -dot- west -at- oz -dot- quest -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:44:47 +1000
On the usefulness of content overviews,
Bruce Byfield wrote:
> Write properly descriptive headings, and
> usually the overview isn't needed.
Bruce says overviews "usually aren't needed" and I
say, based on my own experience, that I "usually"
find them helpful. Now, I realize that "needed" is not
the same as "helpful"; still, I'd suggest giving each
case careful consideration.
Chapter titles, even when thoughtfully written, cannot
always contain sufficient information to help a new
user know where to look for certain categories of
information. (Yes, Bruce is right -- they *should*.)
One variable is the complexity of the material. An
overview can serve to suggest reading paths for
different categories of users. Or it can serve to
point to "Beginner", "Intermediate" and "Expert"
topics. Or it can slice and dice the content in other
ways than that indicated by the bare listing of
headings in the TOC. Often a complete sentence
can say more than a simple list.
The TOC is there to tell us *where* to find a particular
topic heading. The overview can do something more
useful: it can tell us *why* we would want to find it.
I agree with Bruce that having an intelligently worded
topic hierarchy reflected in the table of contents is an
even higher priority. A very helpful reference for this
area is Gretchen Hargis's distinction between "artificial"
and "real" tasks in _Developing Quality Technical Information_.
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