Chapter 5

Chapter 5 expresses the how information should be structured for to the readers. Structuring includes outlining, chunking, sequencing, paragraphing, and clarifying headings. If you are like me, reading these sections covered in this chapter, you will have recognized all of them except for chunking. Chunking? To be honest, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard this term in relation to writing. Apparently, chunking is the act of breaking information down into discrete, digestible units, based on the readers’ needs and the document’s purpose. It is a sort of organizing technique that makes it easier on the readers to “connect the dots”. From my perspective, chunking seems to be another word for writing an outline. When writing your traditional five paragraph essay, the paper is first broken up into the five paragraphs, or chunks. There is an introduction, three body paragraphs describing three separate ideas, and then there is a conclusion. Within each of these sections, however, more sections are derived to further organize the chunk. It is noticeable that hard-copies of documents and web-based documents vary in their chunking technique. Web pages are often chunked down into the smallest sections possible because no one likes to read too much on a computer screen. Users would rather get to the point and move on by bouncing from link to link without having to read so much ongoing text. Documents, on the other hand, are expected to have longer sections and less chunking naturally because they are most often read in a sequential order instead of skipping around to various sections. Chunking seems to be an expression of a technical document’s hierarchy.