Establishing the relationship of DTA to Ælfric's other writings, and to his overall educational programme, is not straightforward. Many of its themes are echoed elsewhere, particularly in the Catholic Homilies that precede it in our earliest manuscript, G, as set out in Appendix 3. Attention has often focused on DTA's opening words: Ic wolde eac gif ic dorste (my emphasis). These were seen by Sisam as an indication that DTA was in some sense a supplement or appendix to another work, presumably the Catholic Homilies, or at least the second series thereof. Godden, arguing against placing too much weight on Ælfric's precise wording here, pointed out that the Lives of Saints collection, clearly free-standing, begins its Latin preface with a formula similar to that which opens DTA: Hunc quoque codicem transtulimus de Latinitate. In this case, however, if we read on we find that quoque is perhaps not redundant, since Ælfric proceeds to contrast the Lives of Saints collection with the two volumes of Catholic Homilies which he has already published:

However, the inclusion of the opening words Ic wolde eac gif ic dorste in A would suggest that if, as has been argued above, the first section of DTA originally circulated independently, then these words were carried forward from this short work (in which case their original significance can no longer be securely determined), rather than being composed by Ælfric with specific reference to DTA's position following the Catholic Homilies as in G. There may be a close parallel in the case of the short piece which now forms LS 19, 155–258, and which begins with the words Is nu eac to witenne, even though its subject matter (warnings against various abuses) clearly does not follow on directly from what has gone before. The omission of the words Ic wolde eac gif ic dorste altogether from D's copy of DTA is consistent with a scribal trend, which we have also observed in B, to distance the work from its author, whilst emphasising its Bedan connections.