It follows: Which of the following sentences

Which of the following sentences is more appropriate? The reasons for these decisions are as following: The reasons for these decisions are as follows : This operator is defined as following: This The difference between them would depend on context, but generally: To my ear, the first describes something, like a time, an event or a place. Example: "Australia, a place of extreme and wild beauty, a land of drought followed by storm". The second sounds more like a statement of fact. "Day is followed by night, pain is followed by joy, drought is followed by storm". As for what comes first, 'followed by' indicates that the second item ('storm') comes after the first ('drought'). In your example, the verb following auxiliary "do" follows the rule and hence is the infinitival (base form) "think". But the verb "be" is part of a separate verb phrase located in a subordinate clause " it is / was possible", where "was" is past tense, and "is" present tense. 'As follows ' means 'as described in the passage that follows this'. What comes next, usually in the form of a list. For example, Mary planned her day as follows : returning all phone calls; a department meeting; lunch with her colleagues; library research.