Re: Note versus Tip

[Michael McCallister <workingwriter -at- gmail -dot- com>]

May not be entirely relevant, but Notes and Tips were always standard and
required elements in the style guide for the Linux and WordPress books I
wrote for Pearson Education (Sams and Que imprints). Used to get dinged by
editors if there weren't enough of them. If print/PDF is the target output,
I do think they break up the rows of text pretty well.

As for the distinction, typically Notes were thought to be helpful
background information that you did not necessarily need to know to
complete a task. Tips offered shortcuts or workarounds.

Mike


Mike McCallister
Just released: *Build Your Author Platform: The New Rules*
<http://buildauthorplatform.com> (w/Carole Jelen)
Notes from the Metaverse: http://metaverse.wordpress.com

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Laura Lemay <lemay -at- lauralemay -dot- com> wrote:

>
> Note (cough) that MSTP defines notes and tips as distinct things.
>
> I think it is pointless to separate them but I had to wrestle with an
> ex-Microsoft writer for them (and lost).
>
> Laura
>
>
> On Feb 10, 2015, at 12:20 PM, Bridget Gordan <bridget -dot- gordan -at- gmail -dot- com>
> wrote:
>
> > Where I work now does this. I find it distracting. At my last job, where
> I
> > ruled the doc world, I incorporated notes into the text and just had tips
> > identified with a label.
> >
> > Bridget
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Sean Brierley <
> > sean -dot- brierley -at- gerberscientific -dot- com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> A search yields nothing. Anyone know of a study that identifies if
> having a
> >> both a note and a tip in technical communication is useful. that is, if
> a
> >> tip is an optional thing that helps you finish a task more efficiently,
> and
> >> a note contains information that affects successful completion of a
> task,
> >> is there a study that tells us whether our audience cares about the
> >> difference?
> >>
> >> Thoughts?
> >>
> >> Sean
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