At 13:40 22/04/99 +0100, you wrote:
>We were always told at college (in the UK) that academic texts should always
>be written in the impersonal tense, especially in the case of scientific
>documents. I generally try to avoid personal tenses, however, if you have
>to use them, the convention is to use the first person plural rather than
>the first person singular. I would never use "you" in an formal text.
>HTH
>Alice
>
>Mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thanks a lot Alice. That's also what I do whenever I have to write a
research report. The problem is that in e.g. assembling instructions, you
are giving instructions to another person in the imperative tense ("Do
this", "Do that"...). Since our customer also object to the use of "You
should do this or that", I am a bit puzzled.
Jojo le reptile (Now remove tail from mouth)
BTW. The UK/US spelling, etc. is yet another story, but I won't bother you
with that.
