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Subject:RE: techwr-l digest: May 18, 2004 From:Jay -dot- Malone -at- ser -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 19 May 2004 14:49:48 -0400
>>Select "XXX" from the "YYY" list of available actions.
Or
>From the "YYY" list of available actions, select "XXX".>>>
I choose the first one. It's a more natural way of saying it. Even a
first-time user slogging through an application won't read this one sentence
as a sequence of two steps. This sentence doesn't equate sequentially with
"From the file menu, select Open" -- which really is two steps. Even then,
though, most people will read it as a logical unit if you say "Select Open
from the File menu." I'd say that most competent readers see the sentence as
a whole, not as individual words and understand that the first thing you do
is go to the File menu, where you select Open. In John's sentence, it's not
even an issue.
HTH,
Jay
Jay Malone, independent technical writer and editor,
on-site at SER Solutions, Dulles VA
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