Defining Terms (Was Re: Judging manuals (by themselves))

[Steve Owens <uso01%eagle -at- UNIDATA -dot- COM>]

Bonni Graham says:
> For example, maybe we should have different subcategories under manuals.
> Rather than hard vs. soft and reference vs. user vs. tutorial vs. quick
> reference, perhaps they should be by subject matter

Off on a tangent, your listing of reference/user/tutorial/quick-reference
inspires me to wonder:

What are the commonly accepted definitions of these terms?

And what other terms are there like this?

Perhaps, if there aren't any, we could come up with a set of commonly
accepted definitions.

In the study of rhetoric, there's a concept called "terministic
screens", meaning that you filter incoming messages through a set of
terms, according to the context or your profession. So, for example,
if you talk to a programmer about programming topics, the terms "job",
"routine", "task", etc, have very specific meanings and will affect
how the programmer perceives your message.

I think these screens are actually helpful;  having a defined meaning
for the jargon provides clarity, when you're planning a book, for
example...

Steven J. Owens
uso01 -at- unidata -dot- com