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Subject:Re: Have ye the will to use it, then? From:"Beard, Samuel" <Samuel -dot- Beard -at- GSC -dot- GTE -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 28 Apr 1999 09:49:47 -0700
Kevin McLauchlan said:
I can't remember the last time I used "will" in a user doc.
Why mix tenses?
Do this. This happens.
If you do this, this happens.
If that happens, do this.
The options are....
The reasons for picking one over the other are... this does
this, and that does that.
Do most of you refer to events in the future when writing
for users? Why? Why not?
Most of my tech writing experience is based on writing to US government
standards in the Department of Defense area. As such, the style guidelines
mandate not using "you" at all. Furthermore, many of the manuals I saw
written and, to some extent, wrote myself stayed away from the "will" usage,
as well. Consequently, when I write manuals, I steer away from using these.
The exception to this was when I worked for a while in the commercial sector
and the manuals were written in the third person, but still generally stayed
away from "will".
Sam Beard
Technical Writer
GSC, GTE (soon to be Bell Atlantic-GTE, soon to be something else entirely!)
