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Q&A Verb tense for technical document titles

The Microsoft Style Guide says it depends on usage: In general, use imperative constructions in conceptual or informational topics for both the title and the headings. Describe what the user wa...

posted 6y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T01:13:25Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33731
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T01:13:25Z (almost 5 years ago)
The Microsoft Style Guide says it depends on usage:

> In general, use imperative constructions in conceptual or informational topics for both the title and the headings. Describe what the user wants to do in the user’s language.
> 
> For material that does not describe a task, use a noun phrase, not a gerund phrase, a prepositional phrase, or a clause. (4th edition, p. 134-135)

They give as examples "Find a File" for the former and "Error Messages and Their Meanings" for the latter.

My group has decided that gerunds are acceptable for conceptual sections (for example, "Monitoring Performance"), though many conceptual topics call for noun phrases. So we use a mix. We have found that the imperative style only works for fine-grained tasks: "Create Keytab File" but not "Configure Kerberos" (the latter being a large task calling for the user to make decisions).

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-02-23T16:12:49Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 2