Editor's Toolkit: Textboxes

Editor's Toolkit

By Susana Christie, Senior Developmental Editor

Textboxes: The Importance of Intention and Identity

Textboxes are a great way to add visual appeal, break up lengthy blocks of text to help readers maintain focus, and highlight certain kinds of information or specific pedagogical features.

Textboxes are best suited to recurring content features that appear in every chapter, but the enclosed content could be considered tangential or supplemental to the points covered in the main body of the writing.

Placing such content in a textbox and using a consistent heading will let the readers know what the box contains and why this has been included.

When Are Textboxes Useful?

Content that is visually distinct from a written paragraph (such as numbered items, data points, or information in bullet points) works well in a textbox.

Short content chunks that have a specific purpose that is conceptually distinct from or somewhat tangential to the main body of the chapter (Focus on Recent Research, Professional Profile, Real World Example, Pause and Reflect, Digging a Little Deeper) are also excellent choices for a textbox.

What Do We Mean by Intention and Identity?

Intention refers to the purpose of the box. A textbox should never be window dressing. Instead, a textbox should always hold content of real value to the reader, but which is a slight digression of some kind from the information that precedes or follows it.

Some authors already know that they will want to use textboxes for specific, identified purposes such as concise summaries of recent research, practical tips for using the content in some way, or highlighting an expert or professional in the field whose work relates to the topic of the chapter. Other authors will have ideas they want to include but feel uncertain about the best way to present these ideas.

Once the author and editor understand the purpose a textbox will serve in the chapters, they can consider how best to identify that purpose for the reader. That identity is expressed in a consistent heading. Examples of textbox headings used in previously published Cognella textbooks include:

Notes from the Corner Office
Pause and Reflect/Pause and Consider
Culture Note
Hint!
Profile of a Practitioner
Try This! (a very short application activity to prepare readers for the next section)
Spotlight on Scholarship

All these headings clearly identify the content within the box and alert the reader to its purpose.

Cognella Academic Publishing

Cognella Custom

Cognella Active Learning

Editor’s Toolkit: Textboxes

When Are Textboxes Useful?

What Do We Mean by Intention and Identity?

Resources