In general, all noncontributing method elements need a brief description. A brief description provides a one or two sentence description of what the element is (in other words, what content the element contains).

Brief descriptions should be written at the time the element is identified. A well-written description is important because if you find it hard to describe what an element is, it may not be a good element

Follow these guidelines when developing method element brief descriptions:

• Do not include presentation names in brief descriptions because that makes it harder to change the presentation name. Instead, refer to "this <element type>", where <element type> is the type of method element. For example, “this role”... or “this guidance".
• Do not state the obvious. The brief description should not just repeat what can be understood from the element type and the presentation name. For example, for Concept: Pattern, don't just say, "This concept describes what a Pattern is". Such information does not provide any value. Instead, provide a one or two sentence summary of what the element contains. For example, "This concept describes s generalized solution that can be implemented and applied in a problem situation (a context) and thereby eliminate one or more of the inherent problems."
• Avoid repeating the brief description in other fields of the method element. If there is nothing more to add to what is in the brief description, then omit the other description fields.
• Make sure that there is a period at the end of the brief description.
• Check for general spelling and spacing errors.