Article

Narrative-based writing for coherent technical documents

Authors:

Nishadi H. De Silva,

Peter HendersonAuthors Info & Claims

SIGDOC '07: Proceedings of the 25th annual ACM international conference on Design of communication

Pages 208 - 215

https://doi.org/10.1145/1297144.1297190

Published: 22 October 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Narrative-based writing is a technique that was developed to address the lack of support for document coherence. The technique depends on the production of a story-like executive summary of the document called a DN (Document Narrative). This is then analysed using a discourse theory called Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) which helps further to correct any lapses in coherence in the DN before proceeding to use it to write the document. Previous papers have described the technique briefly, alongside discussions of the ongoing software development to incorporate narrative support in writing tools. It has now become apparent that the technique itself needs to be explained in greater detail. This is the purpose of this paper. Here, narrative-based writing and the reasoning behind it is described. This is followed by a description of a user experiment conducted in May 2006 to evaluate narrative-based writing and discover areas in which it could be improved. The positive feedback from the volunteers has motivated us to continue to refine and simplify the technique.

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Cited By

Axelrod S(2024)Improving Proposal Writing by Looking to Information OperationsJournal of Technical Writing and Communication10.1177/00472816241262231Online publication date: 23-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/00472816241262231
Weiss MAbuAlhaol IAmin MWasserman A(2016)A Leader-Driven Open Collaboration Platform for Exploring New DomainsProceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Open Collaboration10.1145/2957792.2957797(1-4)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2957792.2957797
Talley DZachry MSpinuzzi C(2012)A process documentation model for DCMIProceedings of the 30th ACM international conference on Design of communication10.1145/2379057.2379111(289-294)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2379057.2379111

Index Terms

Narrative-based writing for coherent technical documents

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGDOC '07: Proceedings of the 25th annual ACM international conference on Design of communication

October 2007

286 pages

ISBN:9781595935885

DOI:10.1145/1297144

General Chair:
David Novick
The University of Texas at El Paso, TX
,
Program Chair:
Clay Spinuzzi
The University of Texas at Austin, TX

Copyright © 2007 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 22 October 2007

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SIGDOC07: The 25th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication

October 22 - 24, 2007

Texas, El Paso, USA

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Cited By

Axelrod S(2024)Improving Proposal Writing by Looking to Information OperationsJournal of Technical Writing and Communication10.1177/00472816241262231Online publication date: 23-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/00472816241262231
Weiss MAbuAlhaol IAmin MWasserman A(2016)A Leader-Driven Open Collaboration Platform for Exploring New DomainsProceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Open Collaboration10.1145/2957792.2957797(1-4)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2957792.2957797
Talley DZachry MSpinuzzi C(2012)A process documentation model for DCMIProceedings of the 30th ACM international conference on Design of communication10.1145/2379057.2379111(289-294)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2379057.2379111

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