1. Appropriate use of tense
Academic/Research writing
By : Atyha Rahman

2. Use of correct tense & aspect
• Clarity and smoothness of expression requires
correct use of tense & aspect .
• Wrong use of tense can mislead the reader ,to have
an understanding ,not meant by the writer :
 Because 80% of the women dropped out of the
study, the research had been stopped. (Verb tense
errors here create an illogical cause-effect reversal)
 Because 80% of the women dropped out of the
study, the research had to be stopped. (The cause-
effect here is clear and logical).

3. Use/misuse of tense cont…
 When Smith tried to contact the
interviewees for a follow up, some of them
moved. (This sentence wrongly implies that
the contact attempt caused the moving).
 When Smith tried to contact the
interviewees for a follow up, some of them
had moved. (This sentence makes it clear that
the moves had already happened prior to the
contact attempt).

4. What purposes do they serve ???
• Literature review :
Present tense is used to describe writer’s
point of view regarding the previous
researches .
Past tense is used to present the previous
researches .

5. Purposes cont…
Present tense is used to describe the
researcher's objectives ,regarding the research
.
Future tense is used to describe what benefits
the future researchers are going to accrue out
of the current/on going research .

6. Introducing and discussing other
people’s opinions…
Use the present tense
 Fischer believes/ Fischer claims
Rather than
 Fischer believed / Fischer claimed
 By putting them in the past tense ,their
opinions seem dated

7. Where to use future tense…
• The use of future tense sounds uncertain and
unconfident in research writing ,except at a
few places ,as
• To describe the futuristic perspective of your
research ,as
• Hence to promote awareness about cost-
effectiveness is a task that will help the
industrialists to make their business more
useful and successful”

8. Future tense is used to describe
objectives of the research…
• It will help the clutterers to make them
understandable and intelligible to their
listeners ,and be more successful in their
social interaction.

9. Where to use present tense…
• For generalizations (in overviews, statements
of main points, etc) OR a generally accepted
scientific fact:
"This thesis investigates the second
approach."
• A statement made by researcher/writer
"Non-standard applications such as CASE,
CAD/CAM are now emerging."

10. Present tense cont…
• a statement reporting the position of a writer and your
support or lack of support for this position:
 "Therefore, this sequential approach is impractical in
the real world where projects are typically large
(Radice, 1988) and the activities from one stage may
be carried out in parallel with the activities of another
stage.“
• Data analysis is also presented in present tense.
 “retail market place promotes continuous
improvement to survive in a turbulent atmosphere.
For that, benchmarking is the exploration for industry
best practices that leads to superior performance”

11. Where to use present perfect …
• indicates that research in the area is still
continuing, or that the research has
immediate relevance today:
 "Several researchers have studied
distributed database design."
 "Fricke (1983) has illustrated that black
liquor shows three rheological behaviours."

12. Present perfect cont…
• To generalize about past literature :
"Software has been tested manually for most
of the last four decades.“
• present a view using an information-
prominent citation
"The services that have been identified for
the future B-ISDN include [7] [77] [78]."

13. Where to use past tense…
• describes the contents, findings, or
conclusions of past research.
• It emphasizes the completed nature of a past
activity.
• It is often referred to as the 'reporting' tense,
and is traditionally used by scholars to report
all past findings, including even very current
research in some cases

14. Past tense cont…
"This model was not popular in the software
industry until it was later refined by Boehm
(1976).“
• Gathering of data :
“the data was gathered from the secondary
resources”.
• Analysis of data:
“The data was analyzed using the algorithm
model”.

15. Active/passive in research writings…
• Avoid too much use of passive voice !

16. Passive …
• The systems most favoured for investment
were shown to be planning, design and
production. Many manual systems were
reported as being current investments across
the sector. Only the largest firms, however,
showed any degree of interest in integrated
systems. Textile and clothing firms, in
particular, were seen to be investing in
automated production, design, planning and
reporting technologies.

17. Active …
• Our research has shown that in terms of
current investments, manufacturers favoured
planning, design and production systems, with
firms across the sector reporting investments in
a range of manual systems. Only the largest
firms, however, showed any degree of interest in
integrated systems. We have seen textile and
clothing firms, in particular, investing in
automated production, design, planning and
reporting technologies.

18. Use of Modals …
• To show the possible use / benefits of the
current/ongoing research :
“The future researchers as well as the
industrialists may benefit from this research”.
“This research can help facilitate the online
customers”.

19. Activity
• In today competitive scenario every employee
________(want/wants ,has wanted) a healthy working
atmosphere in the organization. Conflict
_________(exist/existed/had existed) throughout
environments of all kinds. In the workplace, no matter how
much you __________(attempt/attempted/are attempting)
to avoid it, if you ________(have worked/work/will work)
with people the chances are that you will have to deal with
conflict at some point. To create a better working
environment .Conflict management
______________(received/receives/will receive) increasing
attention, as there is a shift in attitude towards conflict in
the organizations during the last two decades

20. “introduction” to a research paper
,tense use and functions of language
o Research topic , research problem and the
wide area of the on-going research is
introduced .
o The researcher’s interests are explained .
o The likely /possible benefits and advantages of
the on-going research projects are predicted.
o The vast arena of the research topic is
summarized ,and talked about .

21. Examples “introduction” cont…
1. Integrative tactics reflect cooperative
confrontation in contrast, the distributive
conflict strategy represents disagreeableness
or unagreeableness and is typically
competitive, and furthermore, an avoidance
conflict strategy is low in the activeness
dimension .

22. Examples “introduction” cont…
2.Owing to the less research in the field , the
researcher wants to conduct research in the
area and be a pioneer.
3. The future market journalists may benefit
from the research .
4. The researches done till now emphasize the
importance of marketing strategies .

23. “literature review” tense use …
• Kapusuzoglu (2010), examines the impact of Conflict
Resolution Education (Peer Mediation) in schools on the
behaviors of students.
• The data of this research was collected through two types
of Questionnaires, the first type of questionnaire applied to
peer mediation service provider students, aimed to
determine the impact of the training and the second type of
questionnaire applied to service user students were related
to the effects and contributions of service provider friends
and the application on their attitudes and skills.
• ( Both the above passages are from a literature review,but
both perform a different function)

24. Literature review
• To create consistency ,and coherence ,a balanced
use of both present and past tense is
recommended .
• Writing alone in past ,will render “literature
Review” as a collection of just the researches
done in past .( little to do with the present
scenario)
• Writing alone in present ,will delink your research
from the previous researches.
• Hence the better strategy is the use of both
present and past tense .

25. “literature Review” examples
“Cetin et.al, (2004) identified that to what
extend and how conflict management styles
differ in educational atmosphere by
investigating academics’ and high school
teachers’ conflict management styles”.
“Brew and Cairns (2004) believe that choice of
conflict style is closely associated with face
negotiation needs which vary across cultures”.

26. Past tense & research Writing
• Previous researches are ,most of the times
described in past .
• Data collection is described in past tense .
• Research findings are also mentioned in past
tense .

27. Future tense and Modals and their
functions in research writing
• The likely/possible benefits of the on going
research can be described in future tense
though there is an option to describe them
using Modals{ can ,may ,would} .
• Suggestion ,at the end of the research paper
can be described using Modals