Appropriate granularity

When a document uses elements to isolate and identify every possible unit of information, it is said that the document has a fine granularity. In the following example, the name of the author is divided into the maximum number of useful sub-components:

					<name>
					<salutation>Dr.</salutation>
					<initial>J</initial>
					<last-name>Smith<last-name>
					</name>
				

When less than the optimum number of elements are used, the document is said to have a coarse granularity. The following example illustrates a person's name that could potentially be divided into smaller meaningful components (as shown above):

					<name>Dr. J. Smith</name>
				

The finer the granularity, the larger the document. When created manually, such documents are also more expensive to produce. On the other hand, the document is 'richer'; it is potentially more amenable to analysis and processing.