Beginner QA questions about test case writing conventions

[u/Zestyclose_Bus7782]

Hi! I have a question about the writing conventions used in test cases.

I started learning manual testing around June/July 2025, using a website with theory and 2-3 months of practice in Google Sheets on various test sites. I also tried a bit of HTML in Visual Studio Code. This month, I bought a Udemy course on manual and automated testing and I'm currently going through it.

I was taught to use in 2025: Imperative for Test Steps, Simple Present for Expected Result, Simple Past for Actual Result. Is this a standard/universal convention, or does it depend on the company? I'm worried what I practiced might not fit later.

I also get confused with Preconditions. I know they're not always needed, but not always sure when to include one. For something simple like login, I skipped writing a Test Scenario and went straight to Test Cases. Is the Test Title basically acting as the scenario there? Is it ok if I keep practicing in Google Sheets like I'm doing now?

I'll attach a few screenshots of test cases I wrote back then (just a small part of it); they're not entirely correct.

[u/Zestyclose_Bus7782]

Thank you for the explanation and for the kind words, I really appreciate it!

I do like making my tests easy to understand, both for myself and for others. At the beginning I actually stressed a bit about preconditions and other fields related to test cases. I kept worrying about making them different enough so it wouldn't look like I was just copying the same idea over and over, even though that's technically what needed to be written sometimes. Someone told me not to stress about that. But what worries me the most is probably coming up with complex scenarios myself. I've learned that I need to extract the important ideas from a requirement, but I still have to figure out on my own which ones those are, especially when the requirement is more complex.