Re: How many levels of indents and heads are reasonable?

[<neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>]

I agree, only more so. I think that a limit of three levels is better.
When you hit that fourth level, YOU may be able to keep in mind where
you are, but your reader cannot. The material needs to be restructured.
Perhaps a whole new chapter or eight are needed.

The only exception is when the documentation is "shelfware". If you can
be nearly completely sure that no one is ever going to read the stuff,
and its sole purpose is to fulfill a pointy-haired requirement, then
all you need do is have it appear to meet standards.

Darren Butler writes:
 
> 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. 


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