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Keep your words, sentences and sections
>short. The rule of thumb is 7 items per section. Anything longer is harder
>for the reader to absorb. If your document runs much longer, consider
>dividing it into logical segments
>
>Aside from my not know what "section" signifies in the paragraph provided,
>I
>am wondering if this is a general standard for documentation?
Yes, I believe this is fast-becoming the general rule in techwriting these
days. Most companies are realizing the attention spans of the average audience
and they know that if you write the information in "chunks" it will be better
absorbed. This type of writing falls along the lines of Information Mapping
but without the templates. This company I work for is just now converting
old Word legacy documents into XML and they are finding that most procedures
are very long. The engineers are used to writing long procedures and they
don't really want to change to the "chunking" method. I have been able to
convince them to try it by claiming that XML needs to be "done that way"
(which it does), and they seem to accept it better.
So, basically keeping sentences, tables, and sections short is (or will
be soon) the general rule in most places. If someone out there disagrees,
please let me know.
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