Once the audience has gotten your attention with a broad question, and persuaded you to write in a particular genre in response to that question, you discover that, buried inside that larger question, the audience may have a whole set of follow-up questions, which come up in a certain order.

In fact, the follow-up questions often fall into a nested hierarchy.

For instance, within the basic question, "How do I do this?" (which we reply to with a procedure) are smaller questions such as, "What tools do I need to get ready?" and "What should my work look like now?"

In response to questions like these, writers have come up with tool lists ("You need a Phillips head screwdriver") and illustrations inside the steps ("Insert Tab A into Slot B").

Recognizing the set and sequence of components

So the procedure, as a genre, has a set of components that must be included, and convention-the rough agreement of thousands of writers over many years-dictates a certain way of organizing those components.

For instance, to be a procedure, a text must include at least one instruction--a step the reader should take. That step answers the key question, "What do I do next?"

But a procedure may also contain other elements, each of which addresses a particular question the reader might ask in this context. Here are some of the follow-up questions that may lead to figuring out particular pieces of a procedure:

• What should I know before I start? Introduction
• What's the point? Goal
• When should I do this? Context
• What tools do I need? Tool list
• Is there anything I should do before I start? Prerequisites
• What's the basic idea here? Conceptual overview
• How does this task fit into the larger process I am working on? Process diagram.
• What do I do next? Step
• What should I watch out for? Warning
• What did that term mean, in the step? Definition
• Can you give me a hint? Tip
• Now that I've done what you said to do, what's the result? Result statement.
• Do my results match yours? Illustration.
• What's that strange gizmo in the corner of the illustration? Callout
• What does this picture show? Caption
• Could you give me an example of the way this step is supposed to work? Example
• I did what you said, but it didn't work: now what? Troubleshooting.

You can see that these questions--and the elements that carry your responses--follow a rough sequence.

Genres are models

If you were creating a diagram of a generic procedure, you might draw a nested hierarchy, indicating which elements were optional, and which were required and in what order--essentially, a Document Type Definition (DTD) for the genre. In fact, genres are informal analogies of the content models you create for XML delivery.

A genre acts as a general model, an uncodified but widely acknowledged structure, with an implied style.