The main body of the document will of course contain the knowledge you want to transmit to others. It can also contain some auxiliary sections, that:
protect you and your document,
help the reader to quickly find information in your document, based on his knowledge and needs,
place your document into a larger set of documents and resources.
A possible plan for the main body is:
Example 5. Possible main body plan
Introduction
Copyright
Disclaimer
News
Credits
Translations
Structure
Document Structure
Reading Plan
Main text
Getting Help
Usenet
Mainling Lists
Websites
Conslusion
Frequently Asked Questions
Appendices
The introduction section develops the information given in the header, and adds some other things.
The first paragraph of the Introduction section is the preferred place to introduce the authors and to make a longer resume of the document. On the News subsection, you can develop the revision history, given in the header. In the Credits section, you can introduce some people who have contributed to your document, without being an author.
The Copyright and Disclaimer sections are needed to protect your document and yourself. At last, the Translations section can give to the a foreigner reader the translations approved by the authors.
For the Linux Documentation Project to be sure it can distribute your document in the same way it distributes other documents, it is preferable you use the Copyright and Disclaimer approved by the Linux Documentation Project:
Example 6. Sample copyright notice and boilerplate License
<sect2><title>Copyright</title>
<para>Copyright (c) YEARS AUHTOR NAME</para>
<para>Please freely copy and distribute (sell or give away) this document in
any format. It's requested that corrections and/or comments be fowarded to the
document maintainer. You may create a derivative work and distribute it
provided that you
<orderedlist>
<listitem><para>Send your derivative work (in the most suitable format
such as sgml) to the LDP (Linux Documentation Project) or the like for
posting on the Internet.</para>
<para>If not the LDP, then let the LDP know where it is
available.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>License the derivative work with this same license or use
GPL. Include a copyright notice and at least a pointer to the license
used.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>Give due credit to previous authors and major
contributors.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>
<para>If you're considering making a derived work other than a translation,
it's requested that you discuss your plans with the current maintainer.
</para>
</sect2> |
Note: In the copyright notice, you just need to replace YEARS by the year or years during which you worked on your document, and THE AUTHOR NAME by your name.
If multiple authors have contributed to this document, insert a copyright notice for each author.