Lists, lists, lists...

Well, I'm finishing up an introductory course on HTML and webpage creation and the final project is to create a small website, so in two days I'm going to whip up something on tree climbing. I thought I'd begin with some sort of overview followed by a list of lists. How would you approach this? I think I'll be rearranging and using the main topics of Jepson's TCC with some other stuff thrown in. Anybody got any good ideas? Thanks.

This is actually a mess. I mean how do you organize it? What is the hierarchy of topics?

Davej wrote:

Well, I'm finishing up an introductory course on HTML and webpage creation and the final project is to create a small website, so in two days I'm going to whip up something on tree climbing. I thought I'd begin with some sort of overview followed by a list of lists. How would you approach this? I think I'll be rearranging and using the main topics of Jepson's TCC with some other stuff thrown in. Anybody got any good ideas? Thanks.

This is actually a mess. I mean how do you organize it? What is the hierarchy of topics?

I'd approach it like any complex subject: start creating an outline with sub topics, seeing it in front of you will help to organize it. Before doing that I'd write a short summary or "executive overview" to clarify the intent and scope of what you're trying to produce.
-moss

moss wrote:

I'd approach it like any complex subject: start creating an outline with sub topics, seeing it in front of you will help to organize it. Before doing that I'd write a short summary or "executive overview" to clarify the intent and scope of what you're trying to produce.

I'm finding this to be brutal. I mean is a hitch a technique or a piece of "equipment?" Is "Trad" a "climbing system?" And on and on...

Davej wrote:

I'm finding this to be brutal. I mean is a hitch a technique or a piece of "equipment?" Is "Trad" a "climbing system?" And on and on...

Now you know part of what a technical writer has to deal with
-moss

I finally remembered what the first step is for creating the document you've described: create an "abstract" to help define the scope of what you want to accomplish.

Hitch is a knot (not equipment or technique). The rope used is the equipment, the way the hitch is used is the technique.

Trad is a very subjective description of a climbing system. One person's trad is another person's advanced. There's no point in focusing too much on describing something as "trad" or advanced, I'd describe particular configurations in relation to when they were introduced and when they became mainstream (Tautline, then Blake's, then Blake's on a split tail, then "closed split tail hitches" or so-called Advanced Hitches. We're more or less at the beginning of the closed split tail era (eye-to-eye split tail cord). Many climbers are on Blake's Hitch and there's still plenty of climbers who are devoted to the Tautline Hitch (yes, dinosaurs still roam the forest, no reason to become extinct). Just like any history of technical advancement there's quite a bit of overlap, no hard boundaries between one era or the other.
-moss

I'll help making the list on Splicing!!!

love
nick

moss wrote:

Hitch is a knot (not equipment or technique). The rope used is the equipment, the way the hitch is used is the technique.

Well, I ran out of time before I had really generated anything worthy of mention, but the overall hierarchy of topics remains very puzzling. What would you think is the topmost levels of the hierarchy?

1. Climbing equipment
a. tree entry
b. basic climbing equipment
c. advanced climbing equipment

2. Climbing technique
a. safety and pre-climb
b. Lanyard techniques
c. DRT
d. SFL
e. SRT

3. Climbing knots
a. hitches
b. other knots