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Subject:RE: Question marks in titles? From:eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 1 Feb 2005 09:49:06 -0500
bounce-techwr-l-106467 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com wrote on 02/01/2005 09:39:56 AM:
> Whenever we look for some information, we have a question
> in our heads.
True. But which question? Also, the argument is a bit of a tautology and
ridiculous if brought to it's logical extreme. Every reader that opens a
reference book has a 'question' in their head. So, should all technical
reference and text book titles be phrased only in the form of questions?
While it might improve the general population's performance on Jeopardy, I
don't think it would be terribly helpful for general comprehension and
learning.
Then, if the user of the FAQ is genuinely lost with no other resource, why
is a even FAQ considered? It's the failure of all other documentation that
is to blame so a FAQ is a questionable band-aid solution. How many
questions could be answered better by a regularly maintained on-line index
and revised manual set?
Personally I find FAQs and Technical Help pages based on problems next to
useless. It's infuriating to first have to determine from similarly worded
questions which might be close to the one I have and then read paragraphs
of information before finding out that none of them do.
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