RE: Writing a proposal: Proper tense for actions not yet finalized?

["Karen Murri" <kmurri -at- comcast -dot- net>]

I agree with those who said write it in present tense and active voice:

The design accomplishes X objectives
The standard provides 
The scope of work includes

It makes for smoother reading all the way around. 

Best of luck,
-Karen
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Grant Robertson

I am writing an NSF grant for funding to complete a standard for marking up
all educational material and inexpensively distributing it throughout the
world. Many aspects of the standard have already been figured out but not
down to the very last detail. That is what I need the funding for. When
referring to these features of the standard that have been almost completely
figured out but not set in stone, should I use the past or future tense?
When referring to the standard itself, should I say, "it has been designed
to ..." or should I say, "it will be designed to ..." accomplish a
particular objective. I've been taught that a specification should be
written as if the thing being specified already exists and actually does
what the spec' specifies.
However, I am not sure about how to handle this in a proposal.
 
P.S. Yes, I am inventing this standard myself. Yes, I did mean "all
posssible educational material in the world." Most of the high level design
is complete but I haven't finalized it by creating an XML schema and testing
it in a real environment. The standard is called the Distributable
Educational Material Markup Language (DEMML). I need the funding in order to
work out all the little details needed to implement the system.
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