Respond to each discussion questions in 150 words.

6.1

I never knew there was a such thing called front matter and back matter. I do know what each one means though just didn’t know they had a label to separate the two. Front matter is basically the first four sections of a paper or book. Front matter consist of a title page, copyright page, table of contents and a introduction. The title page is the first page that a reader will see. The title page covers the topic that will be discussed and who is author. if it is for a business it could possibly have their logo as well. Next is the copyright page you don’t want to get sued or have someone take your idea so I’m best to always have a copyright page. Look at a copyright page as homeowners insurance. My favorite part is the table of contents it gives the reader a easy way to find certain chapters with in the book. The table of content provides page numbers for each chapter. The introduction is the most important part of the front matter, The reason for that is if the reader does not understand or feel engaged while reading the introduction it might be a turn off.

The second part of a document is call back matter. Back matter is made up of appendixes, glossary, and index. At my job a lot of our manuals have appendixes. These appendixes helps provide more clarity on the topic. For instance it might provide a template for a certain log or worksheet. The next part in the glossary. I can remember having to look at words in the glossary back in grade school for my vocabulary lesson. A glossary is basically a dictionary for book. Any major words that was in the text will be defined in the glossary. Index not to get confused with the table of contents has more easier look at words define a section of the reading. Four instance in the index in my head the word file and will pretty much list every page that you will find the word file on.

6.3

The front matter of any book, report, or whatever the author(s) is/are working on is extremely important, otherwise the intended audience would be left in the dark. Front Matter objects include the title page, an abstract (also called an Executive summery in government documents, unless they are all called that now), a table of contents, and the list of figures, tables, and any important terms (McGraw-Hill, 2001). Every technical document should have a title page. Abstracts are brief summaries of what the paper is about and are actually stand-alone documents. A great example of an abstract can be found here: http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/9252868. Executive summaries are similar to abstracts except the summaries answer questions the author sought to find in the paper. The table of contents lists with page numbers the main and sub headings of the document. The list of figures, tables, and terms are pretty self-evident.

The back matter is similar in function to the front matter, but with different elements. The back matter should include a glossary, the bibliography, the index, and any appendices. The glossary is nothing more than a list of important definitions. The bibliography is a list of all sources used referenced in the document. A great example of this is the bibliography created by each individual in this class. After all it is mandatory. Appendices may include “maps, diagrams, or computations that would not fit in the body of the report” (SuccessCenter, n.d.). The index is a reference section for important terms where they can be found in the body of the report by page number.