Topic types: borrowing from DITA
Please note: based on the comments, Marcia Poulsen has revised the presentation we published here. The revision has been posted: http://stc-on.org/online/topics/content-management/2006/08/19/topic-types/
Online SIG member Marcia Poulsen presented “The Three Topic Types — Concept, Tasks, and Reference — and How to Use them Effectively: Borrowing Best Practices from DITA” for the August 3 Central New York chapter meeting. The Online SIG has posted the slides.
It’s our goal to publish a chapter meeting each month, and to podcast as many of those as possible.
This month’s meeting, held at 1:00 PM and again at 6:30 PM at the Lodge at Welch Allyn, Skaneateles Falls, NY, was attended by members of the CNY and Rochester chapters. We weren’t prepared to record sound this time, but will for our next online-related meeting.
If your chapter has the sound file and slides for a meeting on an online-related topic, and would like them published in Hyperviews Online, please let the SIG manager know.
August 6th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
If you take the time to view the slides, you’ll get the most out of them if you select View Show (or press F5 key) and click through it as a presentation so that the items appear with each mouse click as they were intended to.
I’d be very interested in hearing feedback — specifically how this presentation helped you, where it misses the mark, etc.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:15 am
Hi! I really enjoyed this presentation. I am trying to “lean” out my writing and hope to use your presentation to clarify my text.
Thanks!
August 8th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Good presentation and well done. Very basic, for those who need to be trained in how to organize information. I don’t understand where the DITA connection is, as the Concepts, Tasks, Reference topic types can really apply anywhere and existed long before DITA was conceived.
The one problem I have with the presentation is that I think the “before” example is actually better than the “after” example. Also, the “after” example includes information (volume controls) not included in the “before” example, which confuses the issue. Also, the “after” example looks like a lot of totally aggravating help topics I have run across before: It tells you that you can do it, but doesn’t tell you how. The “before” example tells you, step by step, how to do something (turn Audio Out on or off).
August 8th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
I liked the presentation and the way it shows the value of information typing.
I follow a 5-type model: facts, concepts, processes, principles, and procedures, which I find is much more useful. In fact your example which shows information types mixed, “concepts” embedded in a procedure, are not “concepts.” They are guidelines (principles) which I think shows the limitations of going with only three information types.
Thanks
Ray
August 12th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
These comments all help me in different ways. Thanks, Cheryl, Nick, and Ray.
Nick’s point that “Concepts, Tasks, Reference topic types can really apply anywhere and existed long before DITA was conceived” is well taken. When I give the presentation I emphasize that it is not about DITA but about pre-existing best practices that DITA is built on.
I could have avoided mentioning DITA, but I think that writers who are struggling to make the transition to topic-based writing (whether or not they’re using DITA) can benefit from at least an overview of DITA’s three core info types. That has been the case for me anyhow.
Also I think that DITA’s growing adoption lends legitimacy, and an increasingly common language, to information typing where I have encountered skepticism on this approach in the past.
Marcia P.
August 15th, 2006 at 10:43 am
P.S.
Thanks to Nick Klasovsky’s analysis, I have substantially revised the “after” example.
August 20th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Please note: based on the comments for this post, Marcia Poulsen has revised the presentation we published here. The revision has been posted: http://stc-on.org/online/topics/content-management/2006/08/19/topic-types/
Please comment on the presentation at this new location.