Writing Tips

Using the Correct Tense

In technical documents, writers must focus on the "here and now" of the material. Keeping most verbs in the present tense is one way to accomplish this goal.

When events succeed each other in time, it seems natural to shift verbs from past to present or from present to future to demonstrate the sequence:

Click OK.

MegaMerge will compile the form letters using the text file and the address file that you specified.

As most computer users (and technical writers) know, there's no "will" about it; the computer immediately begins to hum away at its assigned task. Notice, though, that earlier actions in the procedure are always placed in the past ("you specified").

A reader of procedural material is working in "real time". To avoid implying that the machine's response to a user action is less than instantaneous, write all instructions and responses in the present tense:

Click OK.

MegaMerge compiles the form letters using the text file and the address file that you specified.

A significant passage of time between the user action and the result of the computer response is not a justification for a shift into the future tense. That is, even if it takes 15 or 20 seconds for the form letters to be compiled (significant for a computer operation!), the wording of the procedure should stay the same.

You may want to describe the delay to the user. Try to be reasonably precise:

Click OK.

MegaMerge compiles the form letters using the text file and the address file that you specified. The compile process may take up to 30 seconds, depending on the number of letters.

If, in a procedure, the user is providing information that a computer will use only later, in a defined situation, then the present progressive tense is a good choice:

In the Wait box, type or select the number of minutes that the system is to wait for keyboard or mouse input before switching the screen saver on.

While this sort of sentence is often written "will wait" (simple future), "is to wait" more emphatically conveys the idea that the system is under your command. It also more clearly conveys the idea that the system is not starting to wait immediately after you type this instruction, but that it will start to wait at some future time under a given set of circumstances.

An appropriate use of the future tense in procedural writing occurs in the main clause following a subordinate "if" clause:

If you click Cancel, all unapplied changes will be discarded.