On writing for both the layman and the specialist

Sascha

A note that may be interesting for the writers out there.

201702081239 Technical shadow version in the appendix

If you want to write a non-fiction book that is accessible to the masses on the one hand, but on the other hand stands on an extremely sophisticated foundation, you can design it as follows:

1. you write the book for a lay public.
2. you create a special appendix which is a technical shadow version of the book [10/11][#csikszentmihalyi2002] Here you give all the technical, scientific and abstract background for the simple presentation in the book itself.

[#csikszentmihalyi2002]: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2002): Flow. The secret of happiness, Lick: Velcro cotta.

It's a double strategy. One increases the optionality for the reader and can offer so more people good (suitable) contents.

I have observed this strategy in two books:

1. Flow. The secret of happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
2. Antifragile by Nassim Taleb

Massimo_Curatella

Thanks for that. I am always questioning myself about how to create multi-layered content addressing topics for readers at a different level of experience.

I found the structure of the book "The Timeless Way of Building" by Christopher Alexander to provide an effective tool to discover topics in a hierarchical way. Each title summarizes the content of the chapter. A small introduction of each chapter expands its content. So the reader can make sense out of the entire book by reading of the index.

zk_1000

I am not a writer, but i find rechaptes helpful: every chapter ends with a list of the most important things to look out for. The advanced user can skip the chapter and read only this section. Additionally, it serves as a checklist for every kind of reader, to assure understanding or to assure complete implementation.

MartinBB

And if you want to satisfy a former English teacher, you would say "writers" not "writer's"

ctietze

@Massimo_Curatella said:
I found the structure of the book "The Timeless Way of Building" by Christopher Alexander to provide an effective tool to discover topics in a hierarchical way. Each title summarizes the content of the chapter. A small introduction of each chapter expands its content. So the reader can make sense out of the entire book by reading of the index.

Oh, Alexander is great! As a programmer, I naturally dug into his Pattern Language book. The patterns unfold in steps, too; and the approach from there that programmers picked up is like this (I'm leaning towards the "Head First" books here):

1. descriptive name
2. 1-sentence summary
3. illustration to bring the idea across
4. short summary of a scenario where it's applied
5. short description of what it does
6. short summary why you need it, benefits and drawbacks

Massimo_Curatella

@ctietze said:

1. descriptive name
2. 1-sentence summary
3. illustration to bring the idea across
4. short summary of a scenario where it's applied
5. short description of what it does
6. short summary why you need it, benefits and drawbacks

This seems pretty juicy. Too bad I will have to wait for the ebook...