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Subject:RE: Cover pages on technical notes? From:k k <turnleftatnowhere -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 30 Dec 2003 17:38:56 -0800 (PST)
> My experience is that technical people (me included)
> like to be able to skim
> the first page without any additional bother,
> because that's where the
> summary should be. They're looking for specific
> information, they want to
> know if this is the document that will provide this
> information <-snip->
I agree with the idea of putting a summary at the very
start of the document. That way the readers can see in
just a few seconds if the document provides the
information they need. However, I think it isn't
necessary to make it a separate cover page. When I do
such notes I put a "scope" paragraph immediately under
the title. That's mostly just a style decision, but it
also helps the reader's awareness a little. All our
other documents include cover pages, so the lack of a
cover page immediately alerts the reader that the
document in hand is a different type.
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