RE: Features of a well-written procedure

["Bailie, Rahel" <r_bailie -at- trillium -dot- com>]

Concise is good for certain audiences, but we need to balance the need for
plain language, as well. Packing procedural steps to create conciseness
sometimes backfires, as people absorb part of a sentence at the expense of
the rest of the sentence. Of course, as techcomm folks, we can rely on user
testing to incidate where the overly-concise sentences need to be "unpacked"
for maximum information absorption.

Rahel Bailie


Joyce Fetterman wrote:

I'd also change the second point from "is short" to "is concise", for many
of the same reasons. Some procedures are complex and must necessarily go
beyond "short". But if they are concise, then there shouldn't be a problem.

Thomas Quine wrote:

A well-written procedure:
* Is short
<bit snip>

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