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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/19092
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

We're working on a software manual with several chapters and topics and, so far, these are mostly self-contained. This means we have a dedicated chapter for "connectivity" and do not mention connectivity elsewhere, a dedicated chapter for "software upgrades" and do not mention upgrades elsewhere, etc. You get the idea.

But we have now a new software functionality that affects different topics in the manual (say, topics A, C, and G). Each one of these topics is self-contained and isolated from the others but affected in a different way by this new functionality.

The question is, what would be the best approach to read about this new functionality?:

1. Create **a new topic H** and discuss in detail how this new feature affects A, C, and G. Add references in A, C, and G to the new H topic ( **central approach** )
2. **Add information** about the new feature to the **to the existing topics A, C, and G** , without the need of a new H topic. ( **disperse approach** )

We see advantages and disadvantages in both. In ( **1** ) we have everything in one place, which makes things easier in the long term, but H would be a topic of disparate things. In ( **2** ) we provide the information in the topic itself, where is most needed, but this is difficult to maintain the in the long term.

Thanks, Jorge

Original score: 4