The Communication Circle: Tips: Move it on out.

Tips	Move vital but tangential or supplemental material out.
On Brevity Scan On!	Background: Often you can’t predict how knowledgeable your audience will be of your subject matter. Provide links to information that can help a less knowledgeable person bring themselves up to the level of your presentation. If your product is complex enough that you cannot provide all the information someone needs in one presentation (and most of ours are that complex), make it easy for them to get more information. —Levine, 1997 Original Paragraph: Another benefit of TAPI is that it accommodates multiple applications on a single phone line. (The Telephone Application Programming Interface or TAPI is the standard proposed by Microsoft for making the computer work as a telephone.) TAPI lets several applications use the same phone line, so one can be waiting to receive a call while another places one. So you can leave a Fax program running, waiting for a fax you know is coming, while using Dial-Up Networking to pick up your email. In the past you had to cancel the first program, to free up the modem, before you could launch a second program using the modem. With TAPI, the Fax program simply recedes into the background, like background printing. 120 words. Revised paragraphs: Another benefit of TAPI is that it accommodates multiple applications on a single phone line. POPUP: The Telephone Application Programming Interface (TAPI) is the standard proposed by Microsoft for making the computer work as a telephone. LINK TO ANOTHER WINDOW: TAPI lets several applications use the same phone line, so one can be waiting to receive a call while another places one. So you can leave a Fax program running, waiting for a fax you know is coming, while using Dial-Up Networking to pick up your email. In the past you had to cancel the first program, to free up the modem, before you could launch a second program using the modem. With TAPI, the Fax program simply recedes into the background, like background printing. 120 words. Challenge: Circle text that can be moved into links. There are certain programs you ought to run regularly, but you may tend to postpone using them because they take up valuable time. Programs you should run at regular intervals include those that defragment your disk, compress your files, run backup, or clear up errors on your disk. Use the System Agent, if installed, to run a program automatically on a schedule that doesn’t interfere with your work. If you installed Microsoft Plus, you already have a copy of System Agent installed and activated; its icon, which looks like a calendar with a document and clock on top, appears on the Taskbar. You tell the System Agent what program you want it to run, and when—every hour, or day, or week, after a certain amount of idletime. See: Horton (1990), Levine (1997), Morkes & Nielsen (1997b), Slatin (1988) (August 15, 1998) Other tips on brevity: Cut any paper-based text by 50%. (July 1, 1998) Make each paragraph short. (July 15, 1998) Delete fluff. (August 1, 1998) Convert repeating categories of information into tables. September 1, 1998) Beware of cutting so far that you make the text ambiguous. (September 15, 1998)

Bibliography	List of web sites, research articles, and textbooks used to develop the tips.


	Structure	Tips	Theory	WebPoems	Workshops	Books	Articles	Lisa	Jonathan