RE: a question about verb tense/is or was?

Subject: RE: a question about verb tense/is or was?
From: "Steve Hudson" <steve -at- wright -dot- com -dot- au>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 10:16:39 +1100

I come from an ISO background, so ESPECIALLY in internal manuals, it is
always more correct to use the future tense.

Now, being a pedant with a software manual, the user cant read and click at
the same time, so technically speaking the wording should reflect the
immediate future - IMHO.

Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-62124 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-62124 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of Dick
Margulis
Sent: Thursday, 22 March 2001 02:09
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: a question about verb tense/is or was?


Harry,

Let's hope that is not what Steve meant. The trap, as I think most people on
this list would agree, is that we tend to write about software that has not
been released. So a developer, acting as subject matter expert, tells us
what WILL happen when the user clicks a button at some indefinite time in
the future, once the feature is available.

But when the documentation ships, the software IS available. So we tell the
user that clicking a button does something in the present tense. If we
suggest that something will take place as a result of an action, we raise a
momentary doubt in the reader's mind: When will it take place? Right away?
Tonight after I leave work? On Judgment Day? This is not necessarily a
conscious thought, but it can introduce some incertainty and lack of
confidence in the reader; and so we avoid it.

That is not to say that the future tense is never appropriate. It is
perfectly reasonable to suggest that pressing Enter sets a flag [now] that
the system WILL react to during the nightly batch processing. Note the
explicit qualification that answers the question When.

Dick

"Hager, Harry (US - East Brunswick)" wrote:

>Steve,
>
>Are you saying that you normally use the future tense when you write
>procedures for user manuals and other such tech writing?
>
>Please take a look at the following be examples:
>
>- When you click the ABC button, the ABC window will open.
>
>- When you click the XYZ button, the program will start the XYZ procedure.
>
>- You will select the XXX command in the ABC window when you want to
perform
>the XXX procedure.
>
>Are these fair, although perhaps simplistic, representations of what you
>mean when you say you use the future tense whenever possible?
>



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