Each avenue can take you to the others, and help focus your investigation even further. In order to keep you from drowning in information that you don't want, or don't want yet, most of the material on CPN is layered . This means that you will first find short descriptions of civic projects, essays, or key concepts. From there you can proceed to the next layers, each more fully developed than the preceding one. You get to choose the level of detail you would like by either staying at a particular level or proceeding to the next.
Most material has three layers.
The topics area menu lets you find information on a particular area of interest. They represent a diverse range of views from various partners and editorial teams. You can read the essay title and a one line description on the topics page and then choose whether you would like to read the essay in its entirety. A story lead is a short paragraph summarizing a civic project. It is designed to give you a quick sense of whether you would like to read more about the project.