4 4.0 Organizing Material

Pre-planning helps avoid having to rewrite material.

• Most critical is to constantly refer to the course curriculum.

• Write the Learning Objectives first, and constantly refer to them as the course material is being developed.

• Write the homework and exam questions as each chapter is developed. Writing the questions after the course material is completed inevitably results in having to modify the course material.

In other words, it is essential to have clear outline of what is required before starting to write.

4.1   Sections

Break up the material into major sections. In writing a manuscript, build sentences into paragraphs, with enough sentences in each paragraph to make a complete thought.

CPS-ECP documents contain a mix of paragraphs from short to medium length—10 or 15 lines of typewritten copy at most. This makes it easier for students to read the text and to see the pattern of thought in a section.

Write a strong first paragraph. Every paragraph is important, but none more so than the first paragraph of the introduction and the first paragraph of each section.

Keep it short. Make the first sentence brief, personal and appealing. Don’t intimidate a student with passive expressions like ‘is defined as’, or statements such as ‘in this course we will be concerned with’.

In combination, these points help students to feel enthusiastic and reassured that the text is going to be interesting and worth the time required to study it.

4.2   Subsections

Subheadings guide the reader by showing how the theme of the text has been developed. The following are some guidelines for preparing effective subheadings:

1)  Whenever possible, make subheadings one line to avoid smothering a page with bold type.

2)  Numbering the subheadings helps when compiling an index, is useful when referring to other sections in the text and helps instructors to guide students to a particular passage.

3)  Don’t follow a section title immediately with a subheading. A subheading is not needed until the section is at least introduced.

4)  Don’t stack subheadings. That is, don’t put a No. 2 immediately under a No. 1, with no text between. Follow the higher ranked subheading with a proper introductory passage—at least a sentence or so—for the text tocome.

5)  Don’t repeat the subheading in the first sentence. That’s dull and does nothing to help the reader.

4.3   Creating Questions – Homework and Exam 

This topic is discussed in Section 8.

A lot of time will be saved if questions are written, or at least outlined, while writing the course material. Experience shows that writing the course material, and leaving the homework and exam questions until later, results in subsequent modification of the course material. It is always harder to modify course material once it has been fully written.

Refer to Section 9.02.

Number illustrations consecutively throughout the text.

• Do not abbreviate the word ‘figure’, and always capitalize the ‘f’, e.g., Figure 3.5. Do not use fig. 3.5.

• Place captions below the figure numbers.

• Do not refer to the physical location of a diagram (e.g. ‘The diagram below’). During final layout, the position of the diagrams cannot be guaranteed. Therefore figure numbers must be used.

• Charts and Tables are listed numerically, e.g., Chart 3.1, Table 2.1.

There is an advantage in using names like ‘Figure’, ‘Chart’, ‘Table’ etc., rather than only using ‘Figure’. If during editing it is decided to insert another illustration, all the following figure numbers have to be changed; this includes numbers within the text and cross referencing numbers. This can be a daunting task but is lessened by using different titles; instead of having to change ‘101 figure numbers’ (had the title ‘Figure’ been exclusively used), far fewer numbers will have to be changed.

Figure numbers and captions are usually centred under the illustration. Refer to Section 7.1.

Figure 3.2

Lead-Acid Battery Construction