Fewer Gerunds

A gerund is a verb form that ends in -ing and acts as a noun. In technical documentation, avoid gerunds in prepositional phrases — this will make your instructions easier to understand.

Important

Avoid gerund participles (which are also called present participles) in prepositional phrases as well. The difference between a gerund and a participle is that a participle is a verb form that ends in -ing and acts as an adjective.

To learn more about gerunds, see this Grammarly article. To learn more about participles, see this Grammarly article.

Examples

After installing Veeam Backup & Replication, all you must do is add ESXi hosts that you want to back up.

After you install Veeam Backup & Replication, all you must do is add ESXi hosts that you want to back up.

Before running a failover plan, you can use an isolated Orchestrator DataLab to test the entire plan.

Before you run a failover plan, you can use an isolated Orchestrator DataLab to test the entire plan.

Working with vSphere Self-Service Backup Portal, Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager administrators and tenants have different sets of tasks.

Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager administrators and tenants who work with the vSphere Self-Service Backup Portal have different sets of tasks.