RE: future tense vs present tense

["Porrello, Leonard" <lporrello -at- illumina -dot- com>]

I'm not sure why, in instructions, you would ever say, "After you press ENTER...." Instead wouldn't you want to use an imperative: "Press ENTER." From that, "changes are saved" or "the application saves your changes" follows. And as Dan suggests, "Press ENTER to save your changes" would be best.

I would use the future perfect only in introductory material, a theory of operation doc, or requirements documentation. I can see no place for it in step by step instructions.




-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lporrello=illumina -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Harvey, Jon
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 8:41 AM
To: tech2wr-l (techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com)
Subject: future tense vs present tense

Hi All,

I had an interesting conversation with one of my colleagues. The topic was when to use future tense in instructions versus present tense. Such as:

"After you press ENTER, your changes will be saved." versus "After you press ENTER, your changes are saved."

I have my own opinion but I thought I'd ask other people what they think.

..........................Jon

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