OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC

RE: [dita] Thoughts On Sections

  • 1.  RE: [dita] Thoughts On Sections

    Posted 10-28-2005 12:48
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    Subject: RE: [dita] Thoughts On Sections


    Would it not be preferable to advise users to consider developing these
    subconcept statements as individual topics that may then be more easily
    reused in other contexts? In most cases, the nesting into two or more
    levels of information is a formalism preferred by the writer rather than
    a useful construct for the reader. In most instances, when I review
    these structures, they are poorly structured. I know that we can't
    enforce good writing practices, but it's interesting to think we might
    try.
    
    If the authors were asked to write smaller conceptual topics, with
    better structuring of information to make the information more flat (and
    therefore perhaps more understandable), we could stay with the original
    design. If the nesting is really that important to understanding in the
    output context, the nesting could occur in the ditamap rather than in
    the topic itself. The smaller conceptual topics would also be more
    readily available for reuse in contexts where they should be standalone.
    
    Just some thoughts
    JoAnn
    
    JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
    President
    Comtech Services, Inc.
    710 Kipling Street, Suite 400
    Denver CO 80215
    303-232-7586
    joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com