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Actually, I can't, but maybe that's because I'm an engineer.
Assembly instructions on engineering drawings have been
written in "the short form" for several thousand years .
Technical readers such as engineers, factory assemblers
and service techs won't find the lack of "the" at all confusing
in the example you provide, because it would never occur
to them that "remove lower bracket" could possibly mean
anything other than to remove a part called "lower bracket."
Nobody will think "lower" might possibly be a verb, because
that would mean the step is telling them to "remove and
lower" the bracket, when it should say "1. Remove bracket;
2. Lower bracket" if that's what you really want them to do.
What *will* get you complaints will be if the full step
doesn't say "remove lower bracket, P/N xxxx," with the
P/N corresponding to an accompanying illustration with
P/Ns suitably called out.
However, if your're writing something for nontechnical
users, you could raise the possibility of product liability
resulting from a technically untrained user misreading
what a trained reader wouldn't. That's not a terribly
eloquent arguement, but it does tend to get peoples'
attention.
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