Re: Step One. Done.

[Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net>]

I would rewrite each one and try to follow this pattern:

To open the TargetApp window, click Start>MenuOne>SubMenu.

Since there is no further step, the only possible goal of the procedure is to open the TargetApp window. Thus, I would state the goal first and then give the steps.

Depending on the surrounding format, I might possibly make it a bullet. I've sometimes had editors tell me to do that for one-step procedures. I suppose it's so that the bullet gives a visual clue that, yes, this is a procedure just like the numbered ones. (If there was no bullet, people might glance at it and assume there is no step to be followed, just explanatory text.)

This all assumes that the document is otherwise organized appropriately and the one-step procedures aren't part of a larger problem of weird thinking . . . 

On Jun 23, 2010, Sarah Stegall <sstegall -at- bivio -dot- net> wrote: 

I'm editing a user guide written by a subcontractor who is (clearly) not
a technical writer. I am consistently finding "procedures" which consist
of only one step, such as:

 

1. Click Start>MenuOne>SubMenu to open the TargetApp window.

 
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