Writing instructions

The following instructions were written by a native speaker of English. How many errors can you spot?

Next fire up your browser and point it at your site you should see something like this…

If your not something has gone wrong, if you are congratulations you have just installed (name of software).

Luckily all the hard parts are done so now we will install some modules to do this go to administer and then modules. you will see a big list of modules, some will have ticks next to them leave the ones that are ticked.

Here's a better way of writing those instructions. The corrections are in bold.
Next, open your browser and point it at your site. You should see something like this…

If you can't, something has gone wrong. If you can, congratulations! You have just installed (name of software).

Luckily all the hard parts are done, so now we will install some modules. To do this, go to administer and then modules. You will see a big list of modules. Some will have ticks next to them, but leave the ones that are ticked.

When writing instructions it's a good idea to

- use your spell checker
- read it through aloud to see if you've included enough punctuation. Use commas to give a break in a sentence, to allow the reader to pause. By writing a continuous stream of text, your reader will find it difficult to know where to pause between clauses and phrases.