active vs. passive voice

[Nina Rogers]

I am a tech writer, so I shouldn't admit this, but ... while I'm pretty
good about reading manuals (and not just looking for how I could have
written them better, ha ha), I'm very bad about clicking buttons as soon
as I read that I'm supposed to click them. For example, if I were
sitting in a military aircraft, reading the manual instruction that
says, "Press the EJECT button to forcibly eject yourself from the
plane," I would never get past "Press the EJECT ..."

Nina Rogers, Technical Writer
Tax Development (Federal)
Drake Software

-----Original Message-----

One could equally assume that readers are doing the
action when you tell them to do so and that they they
read the result after they've performed the action.
(As we all know, sometimes users just perform actions
by guesswork without reading any documentation at all!)

I think it's dangerous to assume that readers read the
explanatory text before they commit themselves to
performing an action. I often ask writers to move any
warning or information that it's important for the
reader to know before performing an action to a location
prior to the imperative instruction to avoid a situation
where the reader clicks first and then finds out later
that this action wasn't appropriate for the situation.

-- Janice