Introduction which tense

Skip to main content. Published: Consistency of verb tense helps ensure smooth expression in your writing. Use Past Tense… To describe your methodology and report your results. We hypothesized that adults would remember more items than children. In experiment 2, response varied.

Results that were relevant only in the past or to a particular study and have not yet been generally accepted as fact also should be expressed in past tense: Sample Sentence Explanation "Smith reported that adult respondents in his study remembered 30 percent more than children. Sample Sentence Explanation "Nineteenth-century physicians held that women got migraines because they were 'the weaker sex,' but current research shows that the causes of migraine are unrelated to gender.

Use Present Tense. To refer to the article, thesis or dissertation itself. For the concluding statements of your introduction use the simple past or present perfect. Use the past perfect when you talk about something that happened or was found to be the case in the past, but which has since been revised. Knowing which tenses to use for the Literature Review can be a bit tricky, as your usage depends both on which style manual you are using APA, AMA, MLA or others and on how you are discussing the literature.

Other verbs commonly found in this usage context: investigated, compared, studied, analyzed, investigated, found, confirmed, performed, etc. Other verbs commonly found in this usage context: stresses, advocates, remarks, argues, claims, posits.

Use the simple past tense to talk about what you did. Note that you will generally find the passive voice used when describing actions of the researchers. This puts more focus on the actions being completed and less on the agents completing the action. Passive voice has become the general standard for research paper in recent decades, but it is okay to mix passive and active voice in order to make your paper more clear and readable. Use the present tense to refer to or explain diagrams, figures, tables, and charts.

Again, sentences may use both the active and passive voice in these sections. To gain insight into tense usage in academic writing, a typical academic paper can be divided into its most common framework and grammar usage can be molded according to the typical framework used in the particular subject area.

This article will primarily explore and expand on the general usage of tenses in quantitative and scientific studies. The introduction expresses background information, which is generally accepted as facts in a particular subject area. This section is generally written in the present tense considering its contents—presentation of accepted facts and current opinion of the facts and theories being reported. The Methods section describes the processes that were followed to arrive at a certain conclusion.

Considering these processes generally take place before the arrival at a conclusion, the Methods are usually written in the simple past tense. Additionally, the passive voice is abundantly used in this section. Authors may use a carefully selected and contextually relevant combination of present and past tense in this section. If I had done my exercises, I would have passed the test. I think Sven would have been elected if he hadn't sounded so pompous.

Further, in both cases, the word if starts the conditional part of the sentence. Usually, results are marked by an implied then. For example:. The future perfect tense is used for an action that will be completed at a specific time in the future. The implication here is that you will not work more than fifty hours. However, as of right now, this situation is in the future.

The implication here is that you could work more hours. Judy saved thirty dollars.