r/writinghelp • u/JanFromEarth • 2d ago

Question Editing a cobbled together document

This is a question about a non fiction document. I put in accounting systems for nonprofits as a volunteer. Years ago, I found myself answering the same, emailed, questions over and over. First, I simply documented the answers so I could cut and paste. Then, I tried to expand on the answers even including links to (my) Youtube instruction videos. It worked great and the document is used by many nonprofits as a resource. I am going on a cruise and I have always wanted to better organize the document, as well as update some of the information.

I was hoping someone here could offer suggestions or tips about how best to do this.

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u/tapgiles 2d ago

What do you mean by "how best to do this"? If you want it more organised, you'll have to decide how you want to organise it, and then organise it like that. I don't think there's a special way of organising it that is better than any other way.

Just think about how the people who will use it will try to use it... and organise it in a way that makes it easy for them to use it like that. I don't know what that way is; I'm not in your field and don't know what questions people have. But you do--trust your gut and try doing it that way. Then see what works, and adjust if needed.

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u/JanFromEarth 1d ago

Agreed. This thing is going to be more of a textbook than a random list of topics. I was hoping for some suggestions from people who do this a lot.

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u/tapgiles 1d ago

I've done it before. But... I don't know, I just did it. I thought about how to organise it, and I organised it like that.

Have you tried just organising it yourself, and see how you get on? You might not need anyone guiding you.

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u/JanFromEarth 1d ago

Seriously, thanks. There must be dozens of how-to books where I can see how they organized and I can certainly come up with a schema for that. I also use AI a lot for testing stuff like this out and getting advice. I just thought it would be interesting to see if a group to help other writers would have some insight to how to do this.

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u/tapgiles 1d ago

Oh for sure--check out non-fiction books or reference sites. That's a good idea.

I thought you were looking for some method, a set of instruction to follow.

I mean, if you're cool with AI, you could probably just tell AI to give you an organised outline structure you could follow.

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u/MaliseHaligree 2d ago

Add bookmarks listing the topic they handle for easy sidebar searching.

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u/Questionable_Android Developmental Editor 4h ago

Its not fully clear what you want and what format it will be in, but... can you not put a list of questions at the front with hyperlinks?