Structured writing

Last updated

Structured writing is a form of technical writing that uses and creates structured documents to allow people to digest information both faster and easier. [1] From 1963 to 1965, Robert E. Horn worked to develop a way to structure and connect large amounts of information, taking inspiration from geographical maps. [2] He coined the term "Information Mapping" to describe his method of analyzing, organizing, and displaying knowledge in print and in the new online presentation of text and graphics. [1]

Contents

Horn and colleagues identified dozens of common documentation types, then analyzed them into structural components called information blocks. They identified over 200 common block types. These were assembled into information types using information maps. The seven most common information types were concept, procedure, process, principle, fact, structure, and classification. [1] Rather than classifying information through paragraphs, structured writing uses these information blocks that typically include images, diagrams, and/or sentences that always appear under a header. [3]

Origin

Robert E. Horn, Elizabeth H. Nicol, and Joel C. Kleinman published a journal article titled "Information Mapping for Learning and Reference" in August 1969. [4] The article details their new style of writing and their process of creating it. Within the article, Horn et al. cite their reasons for creating structured writing, most importantly, rapidly changing technology. Because of this, information can be difficult to digest as well as span different technological fields that workers might not know how to properly use. By creating structured writing, Horn and his colleagues developed a way for employers to condense a large amount of complex information into simple reference materials. [3]

Components of an information block

In his research, Horn identified four main points to creating an easy to comprehend information block. [3] These points include:

  1. The Chunking Principle: In order to ensure an audience is retaining information, it's imperative that the author separates their information into concise information blocks.
  2. The Labeling Principle: Every information block, or set of blocks, must have a clearly identifiable label that indicates what the block or set of blocks is referencing.
  3. The Relevance Principle: Every diagram, sentence, or image must specifically relate to the concept being expressed within a specific block.
  4. The Consistency Principle: Throughout the information block as well as the reference material as a whole, the author must keep their language and formatting the same throughout.

Problems addressed by structured writing

Structured writing has been developed to address common problems in complex writing: [3]

Impact

In the years after its development, structured writing has been implemented in a wide variety of fields and has been proven to increase understanding. A study conducted by Hutkemri Zulnaidi and Effandi Zakaria in a middle school in Indonesia found that when implemented in a math class, information mapping yielded a higher percentage of students who understood and retained information compared to the students who were not taught using information mapping. [5] Structured writing has also inspired new ways of presenting information, namely Darwin Information Typing Architecture, which is another method used to condense complex information. [6] Along with inspiring others to create their own forms of structured writing, information mapping has expanded to become its own company offering services to turn documents into an information map as well as training and additional software. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

An instructional theory is "a theory that offers explicit guidance on how to better help people learn and develop." It provides insights about what is likely to happen and why with respect to different kinds of teaching and learning activities while helping indicate approaches for their evaluation. Instructional designers focus on how to best structure material and instructional behavior to facilitate learning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind map</span> Diagram to visually organize information

A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information into a hierarchy, showing relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and parts of words are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those major ideas.

Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as writing, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to traditional mass media, such as printed material or audio recordings, which feature little to no interaction between users. Popular examples of multimedia include video podcasts, audio slideshows, and animated videos. Multimedia also contains the principles and application of effective interactive communication, such as the building blocks of software, hardware, and other technologies. The five main building blocks of multimedia are text, image, audio, video, and animation. The first building block of multimedia is the image, which dates back 15,000 to 10,000 B.C. with concrete evidence found in the Lascaux caves in France. The second building block of multimedia is writing, which was first scribed in stone or on clay tablets and was mostly about three things. Property, conquest, and religion. Writing was soon abstracted from visual images into symbols that represented the sounds we make with our mouths. Thanks to the Egyptians, writing was evolved and transferred from stone to Papyrus. A cheaper but more fragile canvas derived from strips of the papyrus root grown on the Nile River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiki</span> Type of website that visitors can edit

A wiki is a form of online hypertext publication that is collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the public or limited to use within an organization for maintaining its internal knowledge base.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiki software</span> Software to run a collaborative wiki (Including private wiki)

Wiki software is collaborative software that runs a wiki, which allows the users to create and collaboratively edit pages or entries via a web browser. A wiki system is usually a web application that runs on one or more web servers. The content, including previous revisions, is usually stored in either a file system or a database. Wikis are a type of web content management system, and the most commonly supported off-the-shelf software that web hosting facilities offer.

Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance, and use. As a form of knowledge management and knowledge organization, documentation can be provided on paper, online, or on digital or analog media, such as audio tape or CDs. Examples are user guides, white papers, online help, and quick-reference guides. Paper or hard-copy documentation has become less common. Documentation is often distributed via websites, software products, and other online applications.

Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design, architecture and information science to the digital landscape. Typically, it involves a model or concept of information that is used and applied to activities which require explicit details of complex information systems. These activities include library systems and database development.

Content management (CM) are a set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. When stored and accessed via computers, this information may be more specifically referred to as digital content, or simply as content.

A graphic organizer, also known as a knowledge map, concept map, story map, cognitive organizer, advance organizer, or concept diagram, is a pedagogical tool that uses visual symbols to express knowledge and concepts through relationships between them. The main purpose of a graphic organizer is to provide a visual aid to facilitate learning and instruction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outliner</span> Type of software to organize texts

An outliner is a specialized type of text editor used to create and edit outlines, which are text files which have a tree structure, for organization. Textual information is contained in discrete sections called "nodes", which are arranged according to their topic–subtopic (parent–child) relationships, like the members of a family tree. When loaded into an outliner, an outline may be collapsed or expanded to display as few or as many levels as desired.

YAML(see § History and name) is a human-readable data serialization language. It is commonly used for configuration files and in applications where data are being stored or transmitted. YAML targets many of the same communications applications as Extensible Markup Language (XML) but has a minimal syntax that intentionally differs from Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). It uses Python-style indentation to indicate nesting and does not require quotes around most string values.

A technical writer is a professional information communicator whose task is to transfer information between two or more parties, through any medium that best facilitates the transfer and comprehension of the information. Technical writers research and create information through a variety of delivery media. Example types of information include online help, manuals, white papers, design specifications, project plans, and software test plans. With the rise of e-learning, technical writers are increasingly becoming involved with creating online training material.

An outline, also called a hierarchical outline, is a list arranged to show hierarchical relationships and is a type of tree structure. An outline is used to present the main points or topics (terms) of a given subject. Each item in an outline may be divided into additional sub-items. If an organizational level in an outline is to be sub-divided, it shall have at least two subcategories, although one subcategory is acceptable on the third and fourth levels, as advised by major style manuals in current use. An outline may be used as a drafting tool of a document, or as a summary of the content of a document or of the knowledge in an entire field. It is not to be confused with the general context of the term "outline", which a summary or overview of a subject, presented verbally or written in prose. The outlines described in this article are lists, and come in several varieties.

Technical communication is communication of technical subject matter such as engineering, science, or technology content. The largest part of it tends to be technical writing, though importantly it often requires aspects of visual communication. Technical communication also encompasses oral delivery modes such as presentations involving technical material. When technical communication occurs in workplace settings, it's considered a major branch of professional communication. In research or R&D contexts, it can overlap with scientific writing.

Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) is a W3C recommendation designed for representation of thesauri, classification schemes, taxonomies, subject-heading systems, or any other type of structured controlled vocabulary. SKOS is part of the Semantic Web family of standards built upon RDF and RDFS, and its main objective is to enable easy publication and use of such vocabularies as linked data.

In technical communication, topic-based authoring or topic-based writing is a modular approach to content creation where content is structured around topics that can be mixed and reused in different contexts. It is defined in contrast with book-oriented or narrative content, written in the linear structure of written books.

Minimalism in structured writing, topic-based authoring, and technical writing in general is based on the ideas of John Millar Carroll and others. Minimalism strives to reduce interference of information delivery with the user's sense-making process. It does not try to eliminate any chance of the user making a mistake, but regards an error as a teachable moment that content can exploit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert E. Horn</span> American political scientist (born 1933)

Robert E. Horn is an American political scientist who taught at Harvard, Columbia, and Sheffield (U.K.) universities, and has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information. He is known for the development of information mapping.

3DS is one of the file formats used by the Autodesk 3ds Max 3D modeling, animation and rendering software.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to natural-language processing:

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Horn, Robert E. (February 1993). ""Structured Writing at 25"". The National Society for Performance and Instruction: 14 via psu.edu.
  2. Horn, Robert E. (1999-08-01). "Two approaches to modularity: comparing the STOP approach with structured writing". ACM SIGDOC Asterisk Journal of Computer Documentation. 23 (3): 87–94. doi:10.1145/330595.330601. ISSN   0731-1001.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Horn, Robert E. (1998). "Structured Writing as a Paradigm" (PDF). Instructional Development: State of the Art: 22 via University of Washington.
  4. Horn, Robert E.; Nicol, Elizabeth H.; Kleinman, Joel C.; Grace, Michael G. (1969-08-01). INFORMATION MAPPING FOR LEARNING AND REFERENCE (Report). Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Technical Information Center.
  5. Zulnaidi, Zakaria, Hutkemri, Effandi (January 2010). "The Effect of Information Mapping Strategy on Mathematics Conceptual Knowledge of Junior High School Students". US-China Review. 7 (1) via Research Gate.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. Day, Priestley, Schell, Don, Michael, David (September 2005). "Introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture" (PDF). Developer Works via IBM.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. Mapping, Information. "Information Mapping". Information Mapping. Retrieved 2023-11-11.