Topic-Based and Structured
Authoring Workshop

April 19

Presented by Neil Perlin

Topic-based authoring and structured authoring appear to be two separate subjects but are actually closely tied. This workshop explores both subjects to see what they are, how they work, and how they change writing.

Topic-based authoring has a simple concept, writing content in chunks rather than books. For example, rather than creating one 500 page book, we create 500 one-page topics that we can assemble into the same book but also use in subsets to create other outputs also. That additional output capability is “single sourcing”, the rise of which has boosted the visibility of topic-based authoring in recent years.

Despite that recent visibility however, topic-based authoring has existed since 1965 when Information Mapping was born. But even after 45 years, there's still confusion as to what topic-based authoring is, how to do it, using what tools, what effects it has, and whether the idea is even as good as it’s cracked up to be…

How does structured authoring fit in?

Like topic-based authoring, structured authoring has a simple concept, writing content in structured form. Before writing a topic, we first identify the type of topic it will be and write it according to a set of structural rules for that type. Those rules add consistency and increase topics’ usability.

It seems simple, but companies that want to do structured authoring can encounter many problems, among them having to pick the appropriate definition of structured authoring, deciding whether to switch from their current tools to DITA or structured Frame, and finding time for the up-front analysis. So we need to define “structured authoring” in a way that works with topic-based authoring and that can be reasonably implemented.

Finally, concepts like topic-based and structured authoring don’t appear out of nowhere. They’re driven by technology and business forces that we have to be familiar with in order to understand why we’re adopting these new methodologies.

In summary, this one-day, discussion and hands-on workshop is aimed at documentation managers, technical communicators, and help authors who want to explore the concepts behind topic-based and structured authoring in order to decide:

• Whether topic-based and structured authoring make sense for them.
• Whether they can implement topic-based and structured authoring using their current tools.
• Whether there’s a workable way to move to topic-based and structured authoring.

The workshop won’t give you all the answers; the material is too broad and dependent on specific conditions in different companies. But it will present the issues to consider and the questions to ask as you plan a shift to topic-based and structured authoring.

The workshop has no specific prerequisites, but experience on at least two online or hard-copy projects, or project or group management, is helpful. You'll be asked to bring in real material for use in the exercises and a laptop configured for your primary authoring tool – Word or FrameMaker for this workshop, but also RoboHelp and Flare if appropriate.

Outline

Overview

Topic-Based and Structured Authoring In Detail

Application of Topic-Based and Structured Authoring