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Re: Writing conventions

Subject: Re: Writing conventions
From: quills -at- airmail -dot- net
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 09:50:27 -0500

Ellen aked about her writing conventions:
Keep your words, sentences and sections
short. The rule of thumb is 7 items per section. Anything longer is harder
for the reader to absorb. If your document runs much longer, consider
dividing it into logical segments

Aside from my not know what "section" signifies in the paragraph provided, I
am wondering if this is a general standard for documentation? I tend to
think having a lot of headings with short paragraphs would force you to
simplify, but perhaps it would help one to write more concisely. I tend to
write complex material in more complex sentence structures than this
guideline would allow.

Ellen,

I agree that section should be definitive and concrete. I would think that sections are similar to Chapters, or perhaps are groupings of chapters. Alternatively they could be paragraphs or groups of paragraphs, or information grouped under specific headings. You definitely need to define what a section is.

As for the 7 items rule, I would not put that in at all. What about procedures or information that may contain more than seven ideas as a coherent block? You cannot divide up something like that for an artificial rule. I would rewrite that to say it should be short, concise, and not include information not pertinent to the main idea.

Scott

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References:
Writing conventions: From: Ellen Vanrenen

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