Great Abstract Writing: Improve Document Searches
- Posted by Essays Blog in Essays Blog |
- April 20th, 2009 |
- Comments
OVERVIEW
Searches in Person Documents (manuals, etc.) often fail because the Reader uses different words for a concept than the author uses. Since the Reader’s words do not appear in the document, the document examine mechanism cannot find them, resulting in frustration. This article describes a User-friendly model for improving searches, without having to change the Users’ behavior or the examine code.
YOUR READERS’ WORDS
People consume the words that they know when they communicate, compose, or examine. It’s folly to attempt to force the Reader to consume the writer’s language; the Reader simply might not know the “proper” constituent. Forced to consume chartless words, the Reader will find the Person Document to be arrogant, or at least difficult to consume.
For example, a Person Manual for a morpheme processing program will probably consume the morpheme “formatting” when dealing with character fonts and filler, as advantageously as page layout. But assume that your Reader uses the morpheme “appearance” to refer to these topics. How can we get the examine mechanism to provide the correct result if the Reader searches for “appearance”?
THE Abstract ANSWER: A Wordbook Examine
The abstract solution would be to convert the document examine code from being an “exact constituent” examine to a “Wordbook Examine.” In a Wordbook Examine, the Person enters a morpheme that he/she knows, and the examine returns synonyms or references to the synonyms in the document. Thusly a properly fix Wordbook Examine should return references to “formatting” if the Reader searches for “appearance.”
Regrettably, the Wordbook Examine is rarely available, and creating one would require changes to the existing examine program. A low school solution may be the best answer.
THE ANSWER: SYNONYMS
For this model, you need to put synonyms of the author’s morpheme (”formatting”) on the pages that you deprivation the examine to find. Much synonyms may include “appearance,” “design,” and “layout.” This is a simple, effective solution.
You can find appropriate synonyms by exploitation the wordbook that is a component of most morpheme processors and of many libraries. Superior the synonyms that your Readers are likely to consume. “Likely to consume” is based on your analysis of your Reader.
This leads us to the next question: How do you put the synonyms on the page?
DON’T Consume HIDDEN Matter
Technically dig writers may ask “why not consume hidden matter for the synonyms?” The benefit is that hidden matter will not “clutter up” the page.
So, if in the sections of the Person Document where “formatting” is presented, the writer put the morpheme “appearance” as hidden matter (assuming the examine inferior would find this hidden information), so the following will happen:
1. The Reader searches for “appearance.”
2. The examine takes the Reader to the “formatting” area of the document.
3. The Reader wonders “How did I get here?” The morpheme that he/she searched for (”appearance”) does not appear on the page, since it is hidden.
Given that a goal of a Person Document is to answer the Reader’s questions, so doing anything that causes him/her to ask another question (”How did I get here?”) is counter-productive. Hidden synonyms are not the best answer.
THE ELEGANT SOLUTION: “YOU MAY KNOW THIS AS…”
Hiding the synonyms is not a good idea. It’s better to let the Reader know what’s going on. The easiest artifact is to add a line of matter on the page where the issue appears. This line of matter begins with the phrase, “You may know this as…”
To continue our “formatting” example, our explanatory word phrase becomes, “You may know this as appearance, layout, or design.” A examine for “appearance” brings the Reader to the “Formatting” area.
Upon perception the phrase “You may know this as appearance, layout, or design,” the Reader knows why the examine found this location. The examine slaked the Reader, and did not add incertitude to the situation.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The goal of all good Person Documents is to improve the Reader’s experience with the product. By exploitation synonyms for “abstract” damage, the writer makes the Reader’s document searches more effective, since the needed topics will be found exploitation the Reader’s words.
By not hiding the synonyms, the Reader is not confused as to why he/she arrived at that place in the document. The result is a better experience with the document and the product.