Re: Reasons for online

Subject: Re: Reasons for online
From: Gwen Gall <ggall -at- CA -dot- ORACLE -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 10:18:47 EST

In-Reply-To: CNSEQ1:TECHWR-L -at- VM1 -dot- ucc -dot- okstate -dot- edu's message of 12-20-94 16:06


Glen Accardo wrote:

If I give someone the ability to find any word in the text, what else can
they look for?
***************

What else _do_ they look for? Synonyms. You _gotta_ have "see" references.

For example, if some software you are using always calls a reboot either a
"cold start" (turning off then on the machine) or a "warm start" (reboot using
a key sequence), and, for consistency's sake, _never uses the term reboot in
the text, are you suggesting that there be no reference to "reboot" or "boot"
in the index?

This happened to me. I wasted hours searching through the manual, (there were
different things you had to do depending on how you rebooted), and although it
was admittedly also a badly organized manual, I _still_ would have saved a good
deal of time and trouble if there had been a cross-reference in the index.

In indexing, _more_ is _less_, in my opinion.

Cheers,

Gwen (ggall -at- ca -dot- oracle -dot- com)


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