English Café: Best Tense for Technical Writing

Advanced Details: Best tense for technical writing

In technical writing, the tenses used the most often are the simple present and the simple past. The simple present is the most common, especially when you are writing about states, conditions, general truths, and conclusions; for example, write OPTION A IS THE BEST CHOICE. TRUCKING THE GAS IS THE PREFERRED METHOD, and THIS STUDY CONSIDERS THE SAFETY FACTOR CLOSELY. Use present simple verb tense.

When should you use the past tense? Use the past tense to report what happened: what you did, what someone reported, what happened in an experiment, and so on.

NOTE: Technical documents usually do not contain the following words: I, you, we … Because the sentences are often written in passive voice … And, as the writer is usually writing about events which have already happened, the tense of the paper is mainly past tense. THE UNIT WAS RUN FOR 100 HOURS. THE WORK TASKS WERE COMPLETED ON TIME.