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I am writing some technical documentation and I got confused when I saw the following paragraph title:

Steps to creating a new thing* in production

I think the correct title should be:

Steps to create a new thing* in production

But I'm not an English native speaker, the person who wrote it is, so I'm no sure.

* Replace thing with the real thing we do on production :)

mucio
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  • Your question seems to be a duplicate of another that has already been answered.

    Nevertheless, you just need to know that sometimes To is used as a preposition, and sometimes used as a verb. When it's used as a preposition, it may be proceded by -ING. There are some verbs that are proceded by To as a preposition: I'm addicted to playing - I'm allergic to sleeping - I'm used to staying up late.

     – A.Cool Jan 24 '17 at 11:30
  • I did a search before asking and the word "steps" in this case is not a verb, but noun (the plural of step, not the present third person of to step). So I think the case is different. I need a native speaker or someone with good command of English to tell me which is the right one in these cases. – mucio Jan 24 '17 at 11:43
  • Did you read the link I sent you? It says if the verb is performing a noun's function, then "To" will be performing the function of preposition, so you can use that way. Check out this post: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/329/when-should-a-verb-be-followed-by-a-gerund-instead-of-an-infinitive

    And see the list of verbs that can and can not be followed by gerund.

     – A.Cool Jan 24 '17 at 11:59
  • Let me understand, do you think steps is a verb or do you think creating is used as a noun? – mucio Jan 24 '17 at 13:53
  • creating a new thing is used as a noun, which makes to perform a preposition's function. It's hard to explain to you, you'd better take a look at the links I sent you. – A.Cool Jan 24 '17 at 14:20
  • Check this out: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/13386/is-to-ing-to-becoming-correct – A.Cool Jan 24 '17 at 14:24
  • Looks like, but, in my opinion, it's incorrect. The focus of the sentence is not about the creating action (these are not the steps to setup the creating environment), but to create the thing we need on our prod server (these are the steps you need to follow to have the thing we need).

    In the example you linked (We're on track to becoming developed nation.), the focus is on the process to become a developed nation, they will be on track to become, but they are not becoming yet a developed nation. This is how that sentence sounds to me.

     – mucio Jan 24 '17 at 16:26

1 Answers1

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*we should always use:

the first form of verb after the proposition 'to'

*the correct sentence will be: "the step to create a new thing."

*if you are using creating, you can use 'for' in front of that, just like, "the steps for creating a new thing."

SHAHAL NS
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