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Subject:RE: a question about verb tense/is or was? From:"Dick Margulis" <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 21 Mar 2001 10:09:06 -0500
Harry,
Let's hope that is not what Steve meant. The trap, as I think most people on this list would agree, is that we tend to write about software that has not been released. So a developer, acting as subject matter expert, tells us what WILL happen when the user clicks a button at some indefinite time in the future, once the feature is available.
But when the documentation ships, the software IS available. So we tell the user that clicking a button does something in the present tense. If we suggest that something will take place as a result of an action, we raise a momentary doubt in the reader's mind: When will it take place? Right away? Tonight after I leave work? On Judgment Day? This is not necessarily a conscious thought, but it can introduce some incertainty and lack of confidence in the reader; and so we avoid it.
That is not to say that the future tense is never appropriate. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that pressing Enter sets a flag [now] that the system WILL react to during the nightly batch processing. Note the explicit qualification that answers the question When.
Dick
"Hager, Harry (US - East Brunswick)" wrote:
>Steve,
>
>Are you saying that you normally use the future tense when you write
>procedures for user manuals and other such tech writing?
>
>Please take a look at the following be examples:
>
>- When you click the ABC button, the ABC window will open.
>
>- When you click the XYZ button, the program will start the XYZ procedure.
>
>- You will select the XXX command in the ABC window when you want to perform
>the XXX procedure.
>
>Are these fair, although perhaps simplistic, representations of what you
>mean when you say you use the future tense whenever possible?
>
IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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