Chapter summaries at start of doc: yes/no?

["Sarah Bouchier" <Sarah -dot- Bouchier -at- exony -dot- com>]

In the last couple of companies I've worked for, the documentation
template called for a summary, at the start of the document, of what was
in each chapter.  I'm contemplating getting rid of these, for the
following reasons:

 

1. The Table of Contents should be sufficient to tell you what's in a
chapter.  If it's not succeeding, you need to reconsider your headings.

2. Ditto the index.

3. Nobody ever remembers to update the summary.

 

However, if my logic were really that overwhelmingly obvious and
correct, nobody would be using start-of-document summaries.  So... what
am I missing?

----------------------------------------- 
Sarah Bouchier 
Technical Author 

exony 

 

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