This document discusses appropriate use of tense in academic and research writing. It provides examples of how different tenses should be used depending on the purpose, such as using present tense in literature reviews to describe current views and past tense to report on previous research findings. The document also discusses using active rather than passive voice and modals to indicate possibilities. Correct tense usage is important for clarity and avoiding misleading readers about cause-effect relationships or implying things occurred in an illogical order.

1. A C A D E M I C / R E S E A R C H W R I T I N G
B Y A T Y H A R E H M A N
L A H O R E L E A D S U N I V E R S I T Y , L A H O R E
P A K I S T A N
Appropriate use of tense

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