Using Action Verbs Effectively in How-To Procedures
Action verbs are the structural backbone of any how-to procedure — the words that transform a description into a direction. This page examines what makes an action verb effective in procedural writing, how verb choice affects comprehension and compliance, and where writers most commonly go wrong. The scope covers workplace documentation, educational materials, and instructional design contexts across the United States.
Definition and scope
Pick up almost any poorly written procedure and the problem announces itself in the first line: "The user should ensure that the device has been powered on." Three wasted words before anything happens, and even then, the instruction is asking the reader to ensure — a word that describes a state of mind, not a physical action.
An action verb, in the context of procedural writing, is a verb that describes a discrete, observable, physical or cognitive act that a performer can execute and a reviewer can verify. Words like press, enter, rotate, select, record, and verify belong in this category. Words like ensure, understand, consider, and be aware do not — they describe internal states that cannot be checked or confirmed.
The Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), which publishes federal plain language guidelines under the Plain Writing Act of 2010, explicitly directs writers to use active voice and strong verbs. The guidance notes that passive constructions and weak verb choices are among the most common sources of reader confusion in government documents — a finding that applies equally to any procedural context.
Action verbs in procedures also carry a classification distinction worth understanding. Following frameworks developed for instructional writing — including Bloom's Taxonomy, maintained by Iowa State University's Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching — verbs can be sorted into cognitive levels:
- Knowledge/recall: identify, list, name, define
- Comprehension: describe, explain, summarize, classify
- Application: demonstrate, operate, use, execute
- Analysis: compare, differentiate, examine, test
- Synthesis/creation: design, construct, formulate, develop
- Evaluation: judge, assess, justify, validate
For most how-to procedures, levels 3 and 4 dominate: the reader executes an operation and then tests or verifies the result.
How it works
The mechanics are straightforward once the principle is clear: every step in a procedure should open with an imperative action verb as its first word.
Weak form: "It is important that the filter assembly is removed before cleaning."
Strong form: "Remove the filter assembly before cleaning."
The strong form is 5 words versus 12. It opens with the action. The performer knows immediately what to do. This isn't stylistic preference — it has measurable effects. The U.S. Army's Technical Writing Manual (TM 11-9999) format standards and the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, both specify imperative mood for instructional steps precisely because reader testing consistently shows faster task completion and lower error rates with direct imperatives.
The selection of the specific verb also matters. A procedure that says "handle the component" has left something important undefined. Does "handle" mean pick up, transport, install, or dispose of? Replacing "handle" with "insert," "transfer," or "discard" eliminates an entire category of interpretation error before it can happen.
Plain language in how-to procedures addresses the broader vocabulary principles — but at the verb level specifically, the test is simple: can a person perform exactly what the verb describes, or does it require a judgment call first?
Common scenarios
Three contexts account for the majority of action verb failures in procedural documentation.
Safety and emergency procedures: In high-stakes environments, verb precision is non-negotiable. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) lockout/tagout standard (29 CFR 1910.147) specifies that energy control procedures must include "specific procedural steps" — language that presupposes discrete, executable actions. Vague verbs in safety procedures are a compliance failure, not just a writing failure. See also how-to procedures for safety and emergency protocols for extended treatment of this domain.
Educational and K–12 contexts: Teachers writing classroom procedures often drift toward phrases like "students should be respectful of materials" when they mean "return scissors to the bin after use." The shift from behavioral aspiration to physical action makes the difference between a rule and a procedure. Procedural writing as a literacy skill examines why this distinction matters developmentally.
Software and digital workflows: Digital procedures present a concentrated version of the verb-precision problem. "Navigate to the settings area" is less precise than "click the gear icon in the upper-right corner." Platform-specific verbs — click, tap, drag, toggle, scroll — reduce ambiguity to near zero when applied correctly.
Decision boundaries
Not every verb choice is obvious. Two boundary cases come up often enough to warrant a rule:
"Check" vs. "verify" vs. "confirm": These three look interchangeable but carry different implications. "Check" is often used loosely; "verify" implies comparison against a known standard; "confirm" implies binary yes/no acknowledgment. In a procedure that feeds into a quality system — such as those governed by ISO 9001:2015 — the distinction between verification and confirmation has formal significance. Use the word that matches the required cognitive act.
Cognitive verbs in training contexts: At howtoprocedures.com, procedural writing spans operational documentation and instructional design. In training materials, Bloom's higher-order verbs (evaluate, synthesize, critique) are appropriate because the learning objective requires those cognitive acts. In a field procedure, they are not — because a technician following steps is not being asked to evaluate, only to act.
The governing principle: match the verb to the act required, verify the act can be observed, and strip any word that adds syllables without adding instruction.