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Subject:Re: Cross-ref pet peeve From:"Schweizer, Alex" <alexs -at- VISTEON -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 18 Jun 1998 11:38:15 -0400
But what happens during the final review and revision process when
lines, paragraphs, or even entire sections may change or go away? In a
hard doc, page numbers can shift by deleting even a single line, and
then some or many or even all (depending on the structure of the
document ) of your "see page xx" references will be wrong. And then you
spend the extra time correcting the ref numbers. Not sure of your
industry, but in software, these last minute changes are commonplace.
In the hard docs I usually ask the reader to "see section 'XYZ' in
Chapter 7". For all the work we do at guiding our readers/users through
the maze of information we provide, we overlook the idea that those same
readers/users need to take responsibility and put in the effort to find
the information they need/want. (Slashes, sometimes you just can't
write without 'em.)