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Use lots of informative
headings
Develop your headings
carefully. They are one of the most useful tools you can use to develop an
appealing, understandable document.
Headings attract your readers’ attention
to information they care about.
Avoid ambiguous headings eg. “Course
assessment”. Does this mean assessment of the course, or assessment of
students? Make headings as informative as possible.
On the other hand, headings should not be
so long that they overwhelm the material in the section itself.
Questions make good headings, addressing
your readers’ concerns.
Write short sections
Short sections break
up the material into easily understood segments and allow you to introduce a
little white space. Short sections look easier to read and understand.
Long sections can appear difficult and forbidding, even before someone tries
to read them.
Include only one issue in each designated paragraph
Limiting each
paragraph to one issue gives the document a clean appearance and contributes
to the impression that it is easy to read and understand. By presenting
only one issue in each designated paragraph, you can use informative
headings that reflect the entire issue covered by the paragraph.
Try reading just the
first sentence from each paragraph. Does the document make sense? If there
are some key issues missing, this means that they are buried in a paragraph
with another issue. Perhaps you can split the paragraph so that each issue
is highlighted.
Use vertical lists
Vertical lists
highlight important topics and make it easy for the reader to identify all
elements in a series.
Vertical lists are much more appealing
visually and easier to read than running text. They make your documents
appear less dense and make it easier to spot main ideas. They are also an
ideal way to present items, conditions, and exceptions.
Vertical lists:
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highlight levels of
importance
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help the reader understand
the order in which things happen
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make it easy for the reader
to identify all necessary steps in a process
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add blank space for easy
reading.
However, you can over-use vertical lists.
Remember to use them to highlight important information, not to
over-emphasize trivial matters. |