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Whilst writing technical documentation, there is commonly a section on troubleshooting or frequently asked questions. I know a FAQ should be real questions - not ones the publisher thinks might b...
Question
technical-writing
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T03:26:36Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/10577 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
Roger Attrill
·
2019-12-08T03:26:36Z (almost 5 years ago)
Whilst writing technical documentation, there is commonly a section on troubleshooting or frequently asked questions.
I know a FAQ should be real questions - not ones the publisher _thinks_ might be asked.
But when wording the question header, should it take the form:
Why does blah blah happen?
or
Blah blah happens, Why?
The former might be a more natural way of simply asking the question.
In the latter the _thing that is happening_ appears earlier in the phrase making it easier for readers to recognize relevance earlier. That's especially the case if there's a long list of questions, where it might appear odd to have every question starting Why, How, etc.
I'm also wondering about 'a third way'!
Blah blah is happening.
I can't find the blah blah.
The fact that it's in a FAQ implicitly suggests this is a question, so maybe it's enough to say what is happening, without explicitly wording it as a question.
What would be recommended, and why?
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2014-03-22T16:50:38Z (over 10 years ago)
Original score: 4