Try to organize and write your manual so that cross-references to other parts of the manual are needed only occasionally for information that is not essential to the topic being discussed. Readers should not have to look up information to complete a procedure, for example. If your manual has too many cross-references, restructure it.
On the other hand, avoiding cross-references altogether may force you to repeat large sections of the text, such as a series of steps which are common to several procedures. Start a cross-reference by telling readers why they should look elsewhere, not where they should look.
Cross-references are a particular problem in revisable manuals since you’ll have to keep track of them. If in one module you tell the reader to see page three of another module, and you subsequently revise the other module, your cross-reference may no longer be correct.
Many authors keep a log of cross-references that they can refer back to later when they’re revising the manual.
Table: Example Cross-reference Log
| Module # | Has a x-ref. to... | Is a x-ref. in... |
|
1.1 |
2.3, 3.2, 4.5, 5.3 |
2.3, 3.5, 4.4 |
|
1.2 |
5.2, 6.9, 9.8 |
1.1, 1.2, 3.4 |
|
1.3 |
5.6, 7.7, 8.8 |
6.1 |
