That seems to the be the question that Michael Stelzner is asking in this blog post. Stelzner asks:

Can a two page document be properly labeled a white paper?

You can extend this to technical communication. Does it matter how long a piece of documentation is, as long as it’s clear, complete, concise, consistent, and correct?

I tend to put the quality of content before its length. I’ve read long guides that have been worthless, and short ones that have packed a lot into a small space. Then again, I’ve encountered the opposite. If an explanation and a procedure takes half a page and conforms to the criteria I listed above then that’s the form it should take. With longer sections, if it can’t be cut down appreciably without harming the integrity of the content then that’s the form it should take.

Ben Minson offers his view on this subject, too.

What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment.

Related posts:

1. LaTeX, content, and structure
2. Coming of Age for Enterprise Content Management
3. Acronyms, those nasty acronyms