Re: Silly but important to me - another twist

[eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com]

As we write procedures for heavy equipment, I understand exactly what 
you're asking. However, the actual formatting and organisation we use 
changes depending on our client's wishes, so I suppose the answer is "It 
depends."

If you want to develop an internal style guide, I would say that it is far 
more important that you are consistent than how exactly the information is 
presented.

The only observation I can make is I probably disagree with the first and 
third constructions as they put the supporting text after the result. For 
a trained or experienced technician, the supporting text is usually 
superfluous. All they'd be interested in is action and result. Most 
supporting text in procedures in my experience belongs in a note either 
before of after the step. Before the step if the information is required 
to perform the step and after the step if the information describes the 
result or is not otherwise critical to the action.

Eric L. Dunn
Senior Technical Writer

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