Notices

Notices are an important feature of professional, technical writing. Notices are specially-formatted chunks of text that alert readers to special points, exceptions, potential problems, or danger. They highlight information readers need to know to understand what they are reading, to accomplish what they want to do, to prevent damage to equipment, and to keep from hurting themselves or others.

There are four main types of notices that are generally accepted as standard:

  1. Note – emphasizes points, add information, remind readers of something, or indicate potential minor problems in the outcome of what they are doing
  2. Caution – alerts readers about possible damage to equipment or data, or about potential problems in the outcome of what they are doing
  3. Warning – warns readers about the possibility of minor injury to themselves or others
  4. Danger – warns readers about the possibility of serious or fatal injury to themselves or others

While deciding which type of notice to use is not an exact science, especially between note/caution, and caution/warning, you should match the name of the notice as closely as possible with its content. Also, use notices in a consistent way throughout a report. Do not create your own notices, such as putting “Important” in place of “Warning.”

General Guidelines for Notices

  • Place special notices at the point in the text at which they are needed. For example, place a caution or danger notice before discussing a step in which readers might hurt themselves.
  • In addition to telling readers to do or not do something, explain as appropriate: 1) under what conditions they should use the notice, 2) what will happen if they ignore the notice, and 3) how to recover if they ignore the notice.
  • Write succinctly, but make sure the text is clear. Avoid telegraphic writing style (omitting articles such as a, an, the), which may make the notice harder to read.
  • Avoid having too many special notices at any one point in the text. Otherwise, the effectiveness of their special format will be lost. If you have multiple special notices, you may want to place them all at the beginning of the document under a heading such as “Notes and Warnings,” and then repeat them individually where they apply.
  • Avoid all caps for the text of any special notice. You can use bold or italics.

Specifics for Different Notices

The following information provides additional details for the different types of notices.

Note/s, Caution, Warning Notices

Use the following format:

  • Use the correct label followed by a colon. Use bold, italic, or some visual indication to highlight the word “Note.” “Caution,” or “Warning.”
  • Align the note with the text to which it refers (as illustrated in the second example).
  • Group multiple notes together, if it would be distracting to present them individually, and make them into a nested list.

sample note & caution notices

Note

The first example shows the placement of a note that links to the initial sentence.  The second example shows the placement of a note that related to just one item in a list.

Caution

Danger Notices

The format varies slightly for danger notices:

  • Put the word DANGER in all caps, bold, or italics—make sure it stands out immediately. Follow the word with a colon.
  • Put the danger notice into a box, or draw attention to it as much as you can, still keeping your design simple and easy to read. Remember to align the box or visual with its text.
  • You may put the text of the notice into bold if needed (but never all caps).

sample danger notice

Remember that danger notices alert a reader to the possibility of serious or fatal injury.