Re: Question Marks in Titles?

[Sean Hower <hokumhome -at- freehomepage -dot- com>]

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Janice Gelb wrote:
My editing group is having a discussion about the suitability of section titles phrased as questions in technical documentation. I was wondering how the Techwr-l group mind felt about this issue. 
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You know, up until a couple of weeks ago I would have said leave the questions out of the titles. But the textbook for a class I'm taking uses questions for its headings and they work great. It's surprising just how well the headings prepare the reader (me) for the content of each section. And these are short sections, about a paragraph or two each. I would have thought that the questions would get in the way but they don't. And they don't feel condescending either. It did take a couple of pages to get used to, which is the only drawback that I can see.

If a writer has a good understanding of the target audience, skimming shouldn't be a problem with question headings either. In fact, the reader might be aided with the includsion of the wh-question. If, for example, a reader is looking for information about setting a property, she can safely ignore those topics that begin with "who." That, of course, depends on how well the headings are written and how consistent the phrasing is. Which all points to extra work for the writer.

As for using questions in reference books, I don't remember when it was when I last saw a book that was strictly reference material. There's almost always some sort of tutorials, how-tos, overviews, or some other kind of content mixed in. So, perhaps the question headings wouldn't be quite so intrusive.

Of course, all of this could be settled with a little user testing. Provide sample copies with questions and without questions and see which ones are better received. That would pretty much end the discussion right there. :-)

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Rachael Smith
I agree with you. The purpose of a technical manual is to "answer"
questions, not ask them.
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Ah, but how do you map the question the reader has and the answer that the manual presents? If you use a declarative, the reader has three cognitive processes to perform: ask the question, locate the topic, decide if the heading answers his question. If you use question headings, the reader has two processes: ask the question and locate the heading. Okay, so maybe it's not that simple, but hopefully my general point makes sense. :-) Now I'm thinking about this.....perhaps people would be more willing to pick up a manual and read it if it did ask a few questions of the user......hmmmmmmmm.....

Well, that's my fifteen cents worth. Your mileage may vary.




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Sean Hower - tech writer
http://hokum.freehomepage.com


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