Re: 7 +/- 2 (was: Omitting Table and Figure Numbers?)

Subject: Re: 7 +/- 2 (was: Omitting Table and Figure Numbers?)
From: Jan Henning <henning -at- r-l -dot- de>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 19:40:07 +0200

but unless someone can prove that those 7 "items" can be
anything more complex than A-Z or 0-9, shouldn't we leave the 7+/-2
criterion out of our writing decisions?

AFAIK it has already been proven. What exactly an item is depends on the context, so in random sequences (e.g., serial numbers), an "item" may indeed be a single character. But in most other contexts, an item refers to a word or a concept.

To complicate matters, the definition for an item may be different for different people. For example, I had in the army an identification number containing the sequence "767". For some people, this may be three itens, but I remembered it as a single one (as the model number of a then-new Boeing airplane).

However, I fail to see why this ambiguity in the definition of 'item' would make it a good idea to disregard the concept althogether. Wouldn't it be a much more rational reaction to research the issue, so as to remove the ambiguity as best as possible and take advantage of the knowledge to create better documentation?

Regards
Jan Henning

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7 +/- 2 (was: Omitting Table and Figure Numbers?): From: Andrea Brundt

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