"Even in a spoken presentation, repetition is just filler..." Not really in spoken word presentations is often used to ensure that the listeners have clearly understood the point or to emphasizes the point been made. And is a very useful tool to gauge the audiences take up of the new information. (Audience Contact - different than Audience participation but has similar goals). I think the point of the meme has been missed by the forum. I took this to mean that a brief over view of what information will be given to prepare the reader for the information or to let the reader know this is the section he needs to read (as he has a question about the software he need answering). the core of the material will be the second time the information will be talked or written about, but this will go into much more detail and fully expand on the solution to the given issue. Then the third time could be a 'this is the question that was asked in the outset and this was the answer that was discussed in the main body of the text'. this lets the reader quickly reference topics and answers to question, he may have. This could be at a later date after the first reading of the documentation. Sorry if this has bumped the topic to the top but i am finding it really helpful.