as follow, as follows, as followed, as following

Post date: Sep 8, 2011 12:26:08 PM

According to some websites, some rules (of thumbs) can be summarized as follows:

  • "as following" and "as followed" do not make sense, but you can use "the following" instead. [url] For instance,
    • CORRECT: You must do the following: blah blah blah
    • WRONG: You must do as following: blah blah blah
    • WRONG: You must do as followed: blah blah blah
  • Most of the time, we use "as follows" [url]
    • CORRECT: That is as follows <-- as it follows
    • Could be wrong: They are as follow <-- as they follow
  • Please have a look at the posts above yours in this thread and at the following usage note from The Columbia Guide to Standard American English.
    • Whether the preceding matter is plural or not, as follows is always singular: The reasons for these decisions are as follows. To use as follow instead is sufficiently precious sounding to make your reader break stride: don’t do it. You can use the following instead, but you needn’t. Less stiff would be The reasons for these decisions are these, or Here are my reasons, or My reasons are, first,…, and the like.

EX1: The rest of papers is organized as follows: In Section 2, we review ....