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RE: How many levels of indents and heads are reasonable?
Subject:RE: How many levels of indents and heads are reasonable? From:"Butler, Darren J Ctr 584 CBSS/GBHAC" <Darren -dot- Butler -dot- ctr -at- Robins -dot- af -dot- mil> To:"techwr-l List" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:29:52 -0400
Krista Van Laan wondering about: Current thinking on heading levels.
Can it all be done with 4 levels, or do we need 6 or more?
The general rule for most military documents is a primary heading with
no more than 4 subordinates. The philosophy is this; if the information
is well-organized, you shouldn't need a 5th level. This forces the
author to either combine similar sub-chunks of data into a higher
heading or create an additional category/heading that would hold all of
the sub-chunk headings. This especially applies to procedural
information and other instances where a flow of thought is critical.
It can be frustrating, but dicing things up too much can quickly produce
reader fatigue or even insult the reader's intelligence. IMHO - when
topics drill down below the 5th level heading, important information may
be ignored because it appears to be minutia - because it often *is*
minutia.
In most cases, I've been able to figure-out how to "get it said" in 4
levels or less. A 5th level would definitely come in handy many times,
but I don't have that luxury. Typically, when I am considering a
4th-level subheading, I take a moment and review my outline to see if it
needs tweaking. This may lead me to create another sub3 or higher, a
primary, or sometimes a whole other chapter.
Basically, I try to stack-up all my pennies, see if they equal 25
cents, then trade them for a quarter.
-----Original Message-----
From:
techwr-l-bounces+darren -dot- butler -dot- ctr=robins -dot- af -dot- mil -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+darren -dot- butler -dot- ctr=robins -dot- af -dot- mil -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot-
com] On Behalf Of Van Laan, Krista
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 3:47 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: How many levels of indents and heads are reasonable?
Are there any guidelines anywhere for what is a reasonable number of
headers and indents?
We have a page layout that includes a couple of outdented headers. Body
text is 3 levels of indentation, which causes the left alignment to be
in any of 5 places. Some of the team have expressed a desire for another
2 or 3 levels of indents. I am not sure how and why these would be used,
so I'd like to be open to this, but am interested in doing some research
before I make a recommendation.
I'm also wondering about current thinking on heading levels. Can it all
be done with 4 levels, or do we need 6 or more?
This layout will show up in online help and PDF documents. I'd
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