The status of your information
Some information is definitive, some
is hastily put together and incomplete.
Both are useful to readers, so do
not be shy to put information up
which is incomplete or out of date
-- it may be the best there is. However,
do remember to state what the status
is. When was it last updated? Is
it complete? What is its scope? For
a phone book for example, what set
of people are in it?
Not every document needs a status
declaration, if there is something
in the overview page of the work
which covers it.
You can of course also give a feel
for the status of the text by its
language ... bad spelling, missing
capitals, and relaxed grammar all
indicate informal notes. Careful
use of verbs such as "shall" and
"should", and the introduction of
Long Capitalized Noun Phrases (LCNPs)
will give at least the impression
of an ISO standard. ;-)
Date it
In some cases it can be useful to
put creation dates and last modified
dates on your work. (Note that this
is the sort of thing which one could
make a server do automatically with
a little programming).
Figure out whether putting one might
later save the reader from following
out of date information.
(back to Sign It , On to links into
context )
TimBL, Jan-94