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Subject:Paragraph numbering? From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, wongword -at- ozemail -dot- com -dot- au Date:Mon, 27 Nov 2006 09:32:17 -0500
Irene Wong wondered <<Ive started to scroll through the archives on
par anumbering but so far I haven't found any references to research
about preferred numbering systems ie sequential 1 , 2, 3, 4, etc or
the structured 1, 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.1.1 Do you know of any references
based on research or any really good articles on this topic>>
No research, but let's do a little thought experiment. In the current
manual that you're writing, can you tell me (no cheating by looking
it up) what topic would be covered by heading number 5.3.1? If you
can't, then it's fair to ask what purpose the numbering serves. Now,
a followup question: Assuming that you cheated and looked up section
5.3.1, and are now reading it. Based solely on the numbers, can you
tell me what sections 5.2 and 5.4 cover, and what their logical/
practical/functional relationships are to section 5.3? Again, if you
can't answer that question, it's fair to ask what purpose the
numbering serves.
That being said, numbering can provide strong benefits when it is
standardized and when it's necessary to refer to specific numbers
that everyone recognizes and uses in their communication and
thinking. Legislation arguably meets that test, as do standards
created and imposed by various standards organizations. For journals
that number their headings, the same rule applies: regular readers of
the journals know what a section is based on long experience with
reading and recognizing the numbers. I'm not convinced that saying
"look in the section Methods, Applying for a court date, in Montreal"
is any less effective or efficient than "look in section 3.1.3", but
I have nothing other than opinion to support that skepticism.
The general information design principle is that we must add
affordances such as numbers to support the reader. If the affordance
does not support the reader, it is not useful and should be eliminated.
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