For a better understanding of DITA, please read the recent series of articles on DITA that were published in Arbortext's XML Publishing Network newsletter:

• "DITA - Four Letters You Have to Know " - The first article in the series provides an overview of the origins and benefits of DITA.
• "DITA Specialization - Matching Your Needs " - This article delves into "specialization," which is the mechanism within DITA that allows you to customize it for your own needs while maintaining the interoperability and reusability of both your existing content and your existing publishing system.
• "DITA - Easier Authoring, Better Comprehension " - This installment takes a more detailed look at the three specializations that IBM has defined-concept, task and reference-and describes the impact on authoring and comprehension.
• "DITA Applied to Software, UI, Formatting " - This article examines "Domain Elements," which are specialized tags that IBM has defined for specific subject areas such as programming, software, user interface and formatting.