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Subject:RE: How Short is so short that No TOC is Needed? From:"Sella Rush" <sellar -at- mail -dot- apptechsys -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 30 Nov 2000 16:12:21 -0800
You need to look at the complexity of the document and how it will be used,
rather than the length.
Is the document something a person will read from start to finish? Or is it
something they'll need to read only portions of at any given time (such as a
collection of procedures--a user manual, or a collection of reference
material)?
If it's a start-to-finish documents, like a white paper, giving them a good
outline in the first paragraph and using easy-to-scan section headings
should be fine. But why force someone to page through a 29-page document
looking for the 2 or 3 paragraphs (or the chart/table) they need?
Complexity is also an issue, also related to usability. Does your paper
address a single issue or topic? Is it linear? I recently did a 25-page
paper on database modeling. It includes both conceptual info and practical
details. There's an intro aimed at getting readers on the same page as to
what they need to know; some people will want to skim or skip this section.
There's a section on modeling a domain of discrete data (such as data you'd
put in an Access table); there's a section on modeling a domain containing
free text data. These are two different processes; a reader will want to
read either or both, but more important they need to know the processes
require a different approach. There's also a section containing some common
problems and tips, and a couple of case studies. For this paper I did a
high level contents, pointing to the main sections according to how I expect
people to use the paper.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bounce-techwr-l-9965 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
> [mailto:bounce-techwr-l-9965 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of
> bogucki91030 -at- yahoo -dot- com
> Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 12:07 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: How Short is so short that No TOC is Needed?
>
>
> Just searched the Ok State archives. Found nothing.
>
> How short is so short that a TOC is not needed? I can
> pretty well use my judgment, but wondered if there was
> some rule of thumb that anyone knew about.
>
> Thanks much.
>
> Mario
>
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