There are three appendixes that typically show up in my documentation plans:
- Author resume
- Audience analysis
- Terms of agreement
The author resume appendix is just that: it’s your resume. You’ll include this whenever you’re using the documentation plan to pitch a job: freelance documentation contract, a book with a publisher you’ve never worked with before who needs to be sold on your qualifications, or your response to an RFP. If you include this, have a cross-reference in the Overview section where you mention the author names so they know to look at this appendix to see your resume and thereby appreciate you more.
The audience analysis appendix is an expansion of the basic audience information that appears in the Overview. There’s a lot of stuff you might put in this section, including personas, audience surveys that profile the readers, or even marketing info (although when I’ve got that much marketing information, I usually build a separate appendix for marketing info).
The terms of agreement appendix is only used when you’re using the documentation plan as the primary statement of work (SOW) for a freelance writing contract. For the terms section, you’ll put the responsibilities and assumptions from the overview, the description of deliverables from the production information section, and any conditions for renegotiation.