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Subject:Re: Front Matter From:"Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- net -dot- au> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 16 Aug 2001 07:59:56 +1000
Regarding
> > Content at a Glance ==>> High-level, brief overview of what the chapters
> > contain, no page numbers
Bruce Byfield suggested:
> Increasingly, I omit these sections, except for noting new editions on a
> copyright page. As a user, I don't give these sections much attention,
> and I don't think many other people do, either, since it seems to be a
> trend to minimize or omit them.
>
I think this decision should be considered very carefully on a
case-by-case basis. Such overviews seldom require more than
a page and can be very useful, especially where the chapter
headings are not particularly self-explanatory to a new user.
The chapter summaries in the overview should be written with
task-orientation (usually). They can often be constructed from
the first sentence or two of each chapter introduction; this
assumes of course that the chapter intros are thoughtfully
constructed.
The whole idea is to save the user time and trouble. I certainly
don't see a 'downside' to this practice if it is done with some
thought.
Often, though, careless writers simply throw together what
is basically a mirror of the table of contents and call that
an 'overview'. Certainly this is a waste of everyone's time.
Getting back to what I said about a 'task-orientation', the
idea is that instead of listing "Chapter 1 contains this, Chapter
2 contains this", it is far more useful to organize by content:
"For info on doing x, doing y, and doing z, see chapter 1."
--
Michael West
Melbourne
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