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• Verb Tenses in Academic Writing | Rules, Differences & Examples

Verb Tenses in Academic Writing | Rules, Differences & Examples

Published on September 22, 2014 by Shane Bryson . Revised on September 18, 2023.

Tense communicates an event’s location in time. The different tenses are identified by their associated verb forms. There are three main verb tenses: past ,  present , and  future .

In English, each of these tenses can take four main aspects:  simple ,  perfect ,  continuous  (also known as  progressive ), and  perfect continuous . The perfect aspect is formed using the verb  to have , while the continuous aspect is formed using the verb  to be .

In academic writing , the most commonly used tenses are the  present simple , the  past simple , and the  present perfect .

Table of contents

Tenses and their functions, when to use the present simple, when to use the past simple, when to use the present perfect, when to use other tenses.

The table below gives an overview of some of the basic functions of tenses and aspects. Tenses locate an event in time, while aspects communicate durations and relationships between events that happen at different times.

It can be difficult to pick the right verb tenses and use them consistently. If you struggle with verb tenses in your thesis or dissertation , you could consider using a thesis proofreading service .

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The present simple is the most commonly used tense in academic writing, so if in doubt, this should be your default choice of tense. There are two main situations where you always need to use the present tense.

Describing facts, generalizations, and explanations

Facts that are always true do not need to be located in a specific time, so they are stated in the present simple. You might state these types of facts when giving background information in your introduction .

• The Eiffel tower  is in Paris.
• Light  travels faster than sound.

Similarly, theories and generalizations based on facts are expressed in the present simple.

• Average income differs by race and gender.
• Older people express less concern about the environment than younger people.

Explanations of terms, theories, and ideas should also be written in the present simple.

• Photosynthesis  refers to  the process by which plants  convert sunlight into chemical energy.
• According to Piketty (2013), inequality grows over time in capitalist economies.

Describing the content of a text

Things that happen within the space of a text should be treated similarly to facts and generalizations.

This applies to fictional narratives in books, films, plays, etc. Use the present simple to describe the events or actions that are your main focus; other tenses can be used to mark different times within the text itself.

• In the first novel, Harry learns he is a wizard and travels  to Hogwarts for the first time, finally escaping the constraints of the family that raised him.

The events in the first part of the sentence are the writer’s main focus, so they are described in the present tense. The second part uses the past tense to add extra information about something that happened prior to those events within the book.

When discussing and analyzing nonfiction, similarly, use the present simple to describe what the author does within the pages of the text ( argues , explains , demonstrates , etc).

• In The History of Sexuality , Foucault asserts that sexual identity is a modern invention.
• Paglia (1993) critiques Foucault’s theory.

This rule also applies when you are describing what you do in your own text. When summarizing the research in your abstract , describing your objectives, or giving an overview of the  dissertation structure in your introduction, the present simple is the best choice of tense.

• This research  aims  to synthesize the two theories.
• Chapter 3 explains  the methodology and discusses ethical issues.
• The paper  concludes with recommendations for further research.

The past simple should be used to describe completed actions and events, including steps in the research process and historical background information.

Reporting research steps

Whether you are referring to your own research or someone else’s, use the past simple to report specific steps in the research process that have been completed.

• Olden (2017) recruited 17 participants for the study.
• We transcribed and coded the interviews before analyzing the results.

The past simple is also the most appropriate choice for reporting the results of your research.

• All of the focus group participants agreed  that the new version  was an improvement.
• We  found a positive correlation between the variables, but it  was not as strong as we  hypothesized .

Describing historical events

Background information about events that took place in the past should also be described in the past simple tense.

• James Joyce  pioneered the modernist use of stream of consciousness.
• Donald Trump’s election in 2016  contradicted the predictions of commentators.

The present perfect is used mainly to describe past research that took place over an unspecified time period. You can also use it to create a connection between the findings of past research and your own work.

Summarizing previous work

When summarizing a whole body of research or describing the history of an ongoing debate, use the present perfect.

• Many researchers  have investigated the effects of poverty on health.
• Studies  have shown a link between cancer and red meat consumption.
• Identity politics has been a topic of heated debate since the 1960s.
• The problem of free will  has vexed philosophers for centuries.

Similarly, when mentioning research that took place over an unspecified time period in the past (as opposed to a specific step or outcome of that research), use the present perfect instead of the past tense.

• Green et al.  have conducted extensive research on the ecological effects of wolf reintroduction.

Emphasizing the present relevance of previous work

When describing the outcomes of past research with verbs like fi nd ,  discover or demonstrate , you can use either the past simple or the present perfect.

The present perfect is a good choice to emphasize the continuing relevance of a piece of research and its consequences for your own work. It  implies that the current research will build on, follow from, or respond to what previous researchers have done.

• Smith (2015) has found that younger drivers are involved in more traffic accidents than older drivers, but more research is required to make effective policy recommendations.
• As Monbiot (2013)  has shown , ecological change is closely linked to social and political processes.

Note, however, that the facts and generalizations that emerge from past research are reported in the present simple.

While the above are the most commonly used tenses in academic writing, there are many cases where you’ll use other tenses to make distinctions between times.

Future simple

The future simple is used for making predictions or stating intentions. You can use it in a research proposal  to describe what you intend to do.

It is also sometimes used for making predictions and stating hypotheses . Take care, though, to avoid making statements about the future that imply a high level of certainty. It’s often a better choice to use other verbs like  expect ,  predict,  and  assume to make more cautious statements.

• There  will be a strong positive correlation.
• We  expect  to find a strong positive correlation.
• H1  predicts a strong positive correlation.

Similarly, when discussing the future implications of your research, rather than making statements with will,  try to use other verbs or modal verbs that imply possibility ( can ,  could ,  may ,  might ).

• These findings  will influence  future approaches to the topic.
• These findings  could influence future approaches to the topic.

Present, past, and future continuous

The continuous aspect is not commonly used in academic writing. It tends to convey an informal tone, and in most cases, the present simple or present perfect is a better choice.

• Some scholars are suggesting that mainstream economic paradigms are no longer adequate.
• Some scholars suggest   that mainstream economic paradigms are no longer adequate.
• Some scholars have suggested   that mainstream economic paradigms are no longer adequate.

However, in certain types of academic writing, such as literary and historical studies, the continuous aspect might be used in narrative descriptions or accounts of past events. It is often useful for positioning events in relation to one another.

• While Harry is traveling to Hogwarts for the first time, he meets many of the characters who will become central to the narrative.
• The country was still recovering from the recession when Donald Trump was elected.

Past perfect

Similarly, the past perfect is not commonly used, except in disciplines that require making fine distinctions between different points in the past or different points in a narrative’s plot.

Sources in this article

We strongly encourage students to use sources in their work. You can cite our article (APA Style) or take a deep dive into the articles below.

Bryson, S. (2023, September 18). Verb Tenses in Academic Writing | Rules, Differences & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved April 17, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/verbs/tenses/

Aarts, B. (2011).  Oxford modern English grammar . Oxford University Press.

Butterfield, J. (Ed.). (2015).  Fowler’s dictionary of modern English usage  (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Garner, B. A. (2016).  Garner’s modern English usage (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

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Shane Bryson

Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.

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Writing Center

Loyola university chicago, using present tense, the literary historical present tense.

Some teachers in the humanities will tell you to use present tense when quoting, which can be confusing; weren’t these sources written in the past? Shouldn’t you use past tense? To make sense of this, try using the “Book Approach” when discussing literary or historical texts or discussing the context of authors’ lives.

Take this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as an example:

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

Consider that, as you read, the author is still “alive” in the sense that they are communicating with you. The following sentence demonstrates a technique called the “literary present” or the “historical present”:

Describing the need for whites and blacks to unite for social transformation, King explains, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

Even if you are summarizing, you can still use the “literary present” or “historical present” because you are responding to your received understanding of the author’s words:

In this work, King describes the need for whites and blacks to unite for social transformation, seeing such a duty as imperative, even if the consequences of racism do not immediately affect everyone.

Now, if you are discussing fact about the author’s life, you are describing actions in the past or the past-present. Your words, without quotes, refer to a statement of fact:

“While incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 for peacefully protesting racial inequality, civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. employed many kinds of rhetoric to convince local white ministers to support his peaceful mission to achieve rights for African-Americans.”

  The APA Exception

Remember that APA format does not use the “historical present,” even when quoting, instead using the past or present-past tense to summarize an author’s words or introduce a quote. It’s a good idea to check with your instructor, especially in a science class, before writing an essay to see what tense you should use when quoting a source.

• Undergraduate
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• Adult Education

How to Use Present Tense in an Academic Essay

Academic essays showcase students’ abilities to present their thoughts on a topic in an organized manner. What tense should be used in academic essays is a topic that sparks debate among some people. It is sometimes appropriate to use the present tense in academics if it is executed properly.

Explore this article

• Consistency

1 Definition

The present tense conveys what is happening now. However, the present tense can also be used to convey future times as well as past times, depending on the form of the present tense used. It may also convey habitual, ongoing or constant actions. Various forms of the present tense exist. The present simple tense describes present activities, facts, universal truths, habits, permanent situations, arrangements, narrations and events that are certain to happen (e.g. "I decide.") The present perfect tense conveys actions that happened at an unknown time before the present, actions in the past that have an effect on the present and actions that began in the past and continue into the present (e.g. "I have decided.") The present continuous tense expresses actions that are happening at the moment of speaking, such as tendencies or trends (e.g. "I am deciding.") Finally, the present perfect continuous conveys actions that started in the past and continue in the present, actions that have recently stopped and temporary actions. (e.g. "I have been deciding.")

The present tense is more appropriate for certain academic subjects than others. For example, the present is acceptable for science papers that deal with facts that are applicable to all time. It is also ideal for literary papers when the writer is describing actions in a literary work. However, it might not be as appropriate for history papers in which past actions are discussed. Within the humanities, it is generally best to use the present tense. Many academic essays center around research, so using the correct present tense can convey the status of the research to the readers. For example, the present perfect tense implies that the research is generally accepted and also currently relevant.

The formatting style of the academic essay also influences whether or not the present tense is acceptable. For example, the MLA style sheet prefers present tense for papers as well as in citations. The APA style sheet calls for the writer to use either the present perfect tense or the past tense. However, the Chicago Manual of Style prefers the past tense for academic essays.

4 Consistency

Consistency is important in academic essays. If an essay began with the present tense, then it should generally use the present tense throughout the entire essay. This is not to say that it is never appropriate to switch tenses in academic essays, because it is necessary when the time frame switches from the present to the past. For example, when discussing a literary work, a writer might use the present tense, but then switch to the past tense to discuss the author of the work.

• 1 University of Washington: Tenses in Writing
• 2 Utah State University: Present-Tense Verbs
• 3 Indiana University of Pennsylvania: Shifty Tenses

About the Author

Kayla Lowe has been a writer since 2007. Lowe is the author of "Maiden's Blush," a Christian fiction romance novel. She studied English and Business Administration at both Austin Peay State University and the University of Phoenix. Lowe has written for various online publications, including Yahoo!

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Verb Tenses

What this handout is about.

The present simple, past simple, and present perfect verb tenses account for approximately 80% of verb tense use in academic writing. This handout will help you understand how to use these three verb tenses in your own academic writing.

Click here for a color-coded illustration of changing verb tenses in academic writing.

Present simple tense

The present simple tense is used:

In your introduction, the present simple tense describes what we already know about the topic. In the conclusion, it says what we now know about the topic and what further research is still needed.

“The data suggest…” “The research shows…”

“The dinoflagellate’s TFVCs require an unidentified substance in fresh fish excreta” (Penrose and Katz, 330).

“There is evidence that…”

“So I’m walking through the park yesterday, and I hear all of this loud music and yelling. Turns out, there’s a free concert!” “Shakespeare captures human nature so accurately.”

Past simple tense

Past simple tense is used for two main functions in most academic fields.

“…customers obviously want to be treated at least as well on fishing vessels as they are by other recreation businesses. [General claim using simple present] De Young (1987) found the quality of service to be more important than catching fish in attracting repeat customers. [Specific claim from a previous study using simple past] (Marine Science)

We conducted a secondary data analysis… (Public Health) Descriptional statistical tests and t-student test were used for statistical analysis. (Medicine) The control group of students took the course previously… (Education)

Present perfect tense

The present perfect acts as a “bridge” tense by connecting some past event or state to the present moment. It implies that whatever is being referred to in the past is still true and relevant today.

“There have been several investigations into…” “Educators have always been interested in student learning.”

Some studies have shown that girls have significantly higher fears than boys after trauma (Pfefferbaum et al., 1999; Pine &; Cohen, 2002; Shaw, 2003). Other studies have found no gender differences (Rahav and Ronen, 1994). (Psychology)

Special notes

Can i change tenses.

Yes. English is a language that uses many verb tenses at the same time. The key is choosing the verb tense that is appropriate for what you’re trying to convey.

What’s the difference between present simple and past simple for reporting research results?

• Past simple limits your claims to the results of your own study. E.g., “Our study found that teenagers were moody.” (In this study, teenagers were moody.)
• Present simple elevates your claim to a generalization. E.g., “Our study found that teenagers are moody.” (Teenagers are always moody.)

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Biber, Douglas. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English . New York: Longman.

Hawes, Thomas, and Sarah Thomas. 1997. “Tense Choices in Citations.” Research into the Teaching of English 31 (3): 393-414.

Hinkel, Eli. 2004. Teaching Academic ESL Writing: Practical Techniques in Vocabulary and Grammar . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Penrose, Ann, and Steven Katz. 2004. Writing in the Sciences: Exploring the Conventions of Scientific Discourse , 2nd ed. New York: Longman.

Swales, John, and Christine B. Feak. 2004. Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills , 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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• Writing Tips

Tense Use in Academic Writing: Past, Present and Future

4-minute read

• 2nd December 2016

While the dreary constraints of physical reality mean that we’re stuck in the present for all practical purposes, in speech or writing we can skip from past to present to future at will.

To do this, you’ll need to master the past, present and future tense. These grammatical tenses are useful in all kinds of writing, but here we’ll focus on their use in academic work .

What is Grammatical Tense?

Before anything else, we need to quickly clarify what we mean by “grammatical tense.”

The main thing you need to know is that the form of the verb in a sentence changes depending on when the action described occurs.

As such, by modifying a sentence to adjust the tense, we can change its meaning:

Present Tense: Alfred burns the cakes.

Past Tense: Alfred burned the cakes.

Future Tense: Alfred will burn the cakes.

In the first example, the present tense verb “burns” suggests that it’s happening now. The past tense verb “burned”, however, shows that it has already happened. And by adding the helping verb “will,” we can instead suggest that the action is going to happen in the future.

The examples above are the simple forms of each of these tenses. There are many variations on these, however, so it’s worth checking how each form differs in practice.

The Past Tense in Academic Writing

In an academic paper, you could use the past tense to show that an idea is not widely accepted any more. In the following, for instance, the past tense “claimed” and “has since been disputed” both signal that the study no longer applies:

Cook and Moore (1964) originally claimed that profane language is amusing, although this has since been disputed by many experts.

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The past tense is also commonly used in academic writing when describing the methods used in an experiment that has already been conducted:

The sample was tested using several techniques.

Some colleges have specific instructions for how a methodology chapter should be written, though, so make sure to check for rules about tense use in your style guide.

The Present Tense in Academic Writing

The present tense is dominant in most forms of academic work, since it applies when writing about current events or states of being. This includes describing:

• Existing facts and theories (e.g., “Profane language is common among young people…”)
• The findings of a study (e.g., “The results demonstrate that…”)
• The opinions or claims of other thinkers (e.g., “Cook and Moore argue that…”)

The present tense is usually correct even when describing a study that happened in the past, as long as the conclusions are still relevant in the present.

The Future Tense in Academic Writing

The future tense is less common in academic writing, but it still has a couple of important roles. One is in research proposals , since you’ll need to describe your research aims, predictions about results, and the methods you intend to use:

This study will examine the role of profane language in comedy. We predict that profane language will be considered hilarious by the majority of respondents.

The future tense is also useful when recommending fresh avenues of research or suggesting how the results of a study could be applied:

Our study suggests that further research should be conducted into the increasing use of profane language in everyday life.

The crucial thing is that the future tense is used when describing something that hasn’t yet happened or that is expected to occur in the future.

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Tense Use in Essays: Past vs. Present

2-minute read

• 16th April 2016

It’s mostly time travellers who worry about the more convoluted aspects of grammatical tense , but the issue of tense use in academic writing is, nonetheless, controversial.

To be specific, there is much disagreement about tense use in essays : specifically, is past or present tense best? Today, we look into this tricky problem.

Present Tense

The present tense is used when discussing current events or states. It will often be the dominant tense used in academic writing due to the number of situations to which it applies:

• Stating general principles or theories (e.g. ‘The third law of thermodynamics states …’)
• Describing a fact (e.g. ‘Catalysts increase the rate of a reaction…’)
• Expressing an opinion or making a claim (e.g. ‘I believe further research is required…’)
• Analysing the results of an experiment (e.g. ‘The results show that…’)

In all these cases, the present tense shows that something applies at the current time or emphasises its relevance to the present.

The present tense can also do this in a literature review, since it frames research in terms of its current significance. This shows that you’re engaged with ongoing debate in your field of study, not simply describing out-of-date research.

The past tense is used when describing events that have already happened. In academic writing, this could be writing up a completed experiment.

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For example, the past tense can be used in methodology and results sections. Likewise, the past tense is useful when writing a case study, since this is almost always about something that has already occurred.

While you can use the past tense in a literature review, saying that someone ‘believed’ something may imply that they changed their mind. As such, the past tense can be used for discussing ‘dead’ ideas (i.e. things that no-one holds true any more) or something that someone has since disavowed.

Future Tense

The future tense is useful for discussing things that are yet to happen, such as when we commit to doing something (e.g. ‘I will continue to research this issue’).

Generally, you won’t need to do this too often in academic writing. However, the future tense can be useful in the following situations:

• Making predictions about the future
• Offering recommendations based on your results
• Suggesting new avenues of research

In all these cases, the future tense will help you express yourself more clearly.

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Using the Present Tense with Works; or, Othello Still Exists

It is customary to use the present tense when discussing a literary work:

Othello is a play by Shakespeare. It begins on a street in Venice, where Roderigo and Iago are arguing .

Some of the themes of Othello are racism, love, jealousy, and betrayal.

Like other Shakespearean tragedies, Othello has five acts.

The play ends with Othello’s murder of Desdemona and with the revelation of Iago’s motives.

Likewise, use the present tense to describe the actions of characters and the movement of plot:

In act 3 Iago persuades Othello that there is reason to doubt Desdemona’s faithfulness, and in the final act Othello confronts Desdemona and then strangles her to death.

The rationale for using the present tense when discussing a work is that the work exists in the present just as it existed earlier: Othello always has five acts and always ends with the same actions.

The principle applies to works of all sorts, from literary criticism to films to websites:

William Hazlitt’s Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays contrasts expressions of passion and violence in Othello and Macbeth .

A 1965 film version of Othello stars Laurence Olivier.

The blog Bard Film analyzes references to Shakespeare in popular films.

By extension, you may also use the present tense when the subject is not the work itself but the work’s author, if the work is implied. In the following examples, “in Othello ” is implied:

[In Othello ] Shakespeare gives Iago, an archetypal villain, an important role.

By identifying Othello as a Moor, Shakespeare introduces both racial and religious issues [in Othello ].

Acceptable Uses of the Past Tense

If you’re primarily discussing the historical context of a work, however, use the past tense:

By identifying Othello as a Moor, Shakespeare introduced both racial and religious issues to early modern playgoers.

Use care when choosing between the past and present tense. A good rule of thumb is to consider whether the principal context of your discussion is textual or historical.

When the context is clearly historical, the choice of the past tense is obvious:

Othello was first performed in 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London.

Shakespeare composed Othello about fifteen years after Marlowe wrote Tamberlaine .

Aim for Consistency

Above all, aim for consistency and try to avoid frequent shifts in tense, which can be jarring for readers. It’s easy to shift tenses without realizing it. Here’s an example that uses tenses inconsistently:

For the plot of Othello , Shakespeare adapts a sixteenth-century Italian tale, while Christopher Marlowe based his play Tamberlaine on the life of an Asian emperor.

In this sentence about the sources of Elizabethan dramatists it would be better to keep the verb tenses consistent and use adapted and based .

Here’s another example of tense shifting:

The details of Othello’s narrative come from medieval and early modern travel books, some of which described fantastic creatures.

The author uses the present tense for the main text under discussion, but for the other texts—the travel books—switches to the past tense. The switch is understandable: the travel books inspired Othello’s narrative in the past, when the narrative was created. Using the present tense consistently, however, would accurately reflect the status of all the texts mentioned in the sentence as works that exist in the present: The details of Othello’s narrative come from medieval and early modern travel books, some of which describe fantastic creatures.

A word of caution for copyeditors: if an author uses the past or present tense in a consistent manner when discussing works, pause before you follow an impulse to change the tenses, especially if such an intervention would be extensive. The author may have sound reasons for his or her choices, and you would do better to query before you impose one tense over another. If you encounter frequent shifting of tenses for no discernible reason, revising for consistency is a good idea.

marian 06 October 2019 AT 07:10 PM

When quoting literature that is originally written in the past tense, which tense should be used to introduce the text - present or past?

Example for essay on Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome: When Ethan and Mattie return from town, they, “passed into the kitchen, which had the deadly chill of a vault after the dry cold of the night."

Writing an academic essay for a Literature course, I should write in the present tense and I should be consistent with tense. Which rule applies here?

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Erika Suffern 07 October 2019 AT 08:10 AM

The way you have written it is correct. Don't change the verb tenses in quoted material.

Veronica M. Schuder 12 December 2020 AT 04:12 PM

The second use of this word, which occurs when Mrs Mallard sits down and “abandoned herself” (756), offers an alternative meaning.

That sounds wrong. Can I change the tense to present with brackets: “abandon[s] herself” (756). ?????

Erika Suffern 14 December 2020 AT 09:12 AM

The short answer is yes. For additional guidance, please see our post on changing verb tenses in quotations: https://style.mla.org/using-brackets-to-change-tense/

Professor Rosalind Horowitz 10 March 2021 AT 12:03 PM

In the study of ancient Judaic literature, for example, Rashi, a brilliant commentator of texts, we always use the present tense to show that the scholarship is not archaic but still relevant and useful to current life. It is a way of putting the text inside the contemporary world.

Sara 16 June 2022 AT 05:06 PM

When writing about a text in MLA should you write in simple present or present continuous? or does it not matter?

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Past, Present, and Future Tense in Essays: How to Switch

Past, Present, and the Future Tenses in Your Essay

Choosing the correct grammatical tense for your essay can be a challenge. You have to decide whether to use past, present, or future tense. A wrong choice impacts your essay negatively. It will lack clarity and flow. This is not a situation that you ought to find yourself in.

Most students struggle with choosing the right tense. For some, it is due to the lack of guidance on using grammatical tenses. Others are careless with their writing. The result is a poorly written essay that a reader cannot understand. However, it is a problem that you can deal with once and for all.

Reading the instructions will enlighten you on which tense to use in writing your essay. Your tutor can also guide you on how to use grammatical tenses. You get the guidelines of when to use a particular tense. The help prevents you from choosing the wrong tense.

The type of your essay also reveals which tenses you ought to use. All essays are not the same. They have some distinct rules that create a significant difference. You must be aware of those rules and follow them to the latter. For instance, using the right tense is something you must take seriously. 

Should an Essay be in Present, Past, or Future Tense?

Many students might find it challenging to choose the right tense. Some are yet to learn by heart the rules governing the use of tenses. They end up making the wrong choice.

Ultimately, the impact of their essay score is negative. Fortunately, it is a problem you can work on. 

Every essay needs to be clear and engaging, where the reader needs an easier time reading it. But, that is not the case with all students. Some find themselves using the wrong tenses.

Instead of using the present tense, they write essays in the past tense. But perhaps they do not know when to use a present, past, or future tense.

You can use present, past, and future tense in your essay. But there is a catch. Before you write your essay, you must know which tense fits it. You can either get guidance from your tutor or do your research. Above all, ensure the tense you use is consistent and clear.

Most essay writers use the present tense. It is simple and direct to the point. You can write short sentences that are easier to read and understand. The reader will use little time to read your essay. It will not be tiring to read it since the message is clear.

The present tense is common in academic writing. It allows you to write about current states of events more candidly. By using the present tense, you can easily describe theories. It will be easier to explain an event that is happening now. Generally, the present tense is ideal for writing essays.

Instances to Use Present Tense in an Essay

You do not have to write every essay in the present tense. There are instances under which it becomes a must. At that juncture, you have to play ball.

You must shun the past and future tenses to make your essay consistent. Deviating from the present tense might distort your sentence structure thereby complicating your essay.

The present tense is ideal for creating a sense of immediacy. The reader gets to experience every action as it unfolds. It is easier to grasp the information the writer is passing across. The clarity in the essay engages the reader .

This is one of the reasons why writing in the present tense is common.

Writing an essay in the present tense is much easier. You can write your essay within the shortest time possible, and meeting deadlines will not be an issue. Your essay will be simple and clear to the point, without any sophistication.

Use present tense in an essay where you refer to existing facts. The present tense shows that the fact is indeed true. It becomes easier for the reader to believe in what you are writing. Also, it describes the findings of a study in the present tense. That is also the case when expressing people’s claims and opinions .

Instances to Use Past Tense in an Essay

You must be careful with the tense you use in your essay. Each tense does come with its demands. For instance, past tense is ideal for emphasizing that people do not accept a particular idea. Use past tense to describe that idea for easier understanding.

If your essay describes historical events, you have to use past tense. It makes the description clearer to the reader. This is a clear indication that they can get a picture of the turn of events. This is very crucial for the flow of your essay.

Reading it becomes engaging and enjoyable without any sense of struggling to understand ideas.

Instances to Use Future Tense in an Essay

Not often do students use the future tense in essays. They either use present and past tenses, the former being the most common.

But some instances permit the use of future tense. It does play a significant role.

Use future tense to describe your essay’s research predictions, methods, and aims. It becomes easier to demystify what the researcher is up to.

Besides, if you recommend research sources or state the application of study findings, then use future tense. You can easily describe something that is yet to happen or likely to occur in the future.

Can You Combine All Tenses in Essay Writing?

You can also use all tenses in your essay. However, you need to take this step with a lot of caution. Remember, the reader needs to get your message. You have to do that with some pomp to make your essay an enticing read .

Combining all tenses will certainly do that job for you.

Describe the cause and impact of interlocking events in an essay by combining all tenses. Your target audience can now get the hang of the events from a much broader perceptive. However, you have to respect time settings.

It is crucial to avoid any confusion that might distort your message. Ensure you get rid of any sophistication bound to disturb the flow of thoughts in your write-up.

Combining all tenses can be a win or a loss for you. It depends on the context of your essay. Besides, you need to mind your reader.

Your essay should be on a standard that is easier to comprehend. Thus, proceed with caution. 

Make your point in a manner that captures the reader’s attention. Using all tenses can help you achieve that feat. However, the tenses should not appear haphazardly. If you are not careful, you might make it hard for your reader to understand your insinuating description.

Choosing the right tense for your essay is fundamental. It ensures that you can engage your reader in a comprehensive context easily. It starts by knowing when to use present, past, and future tense or combine them.

If your essay is about current events, it must be in the present tense. The reader gets to know what is happening at the very moment.

Use past tense to write an essay on past events. Describing those events will be much easier. You will do it with clarity hence not causing any confusion. On the other side, the future tense suits the description of events yet to occur.

You can also use the future tense to predict events that are about to happen. And if you want to polish your essay, care to combine all tenses, but do it with caution.

Watch this video to learn more about this.

When not handling complex essays and academic writing tasks, Josh is busy advising students on how to pass assignments. In spare time, he loves playing football or walking with his dog around the park.

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How to Use Present and Past Tense in Essay Writing

Today we look at how we use present and past tenses in our essay writing to convery our message through our best of knowledge with a proper tone.

Essay writing! You might be thinking that why is a blog post on essay writing? It is something everyone can do. Yes, you are very correct everyone can do it but the point is who does it in the right way.

Suppose you need to write an essay in an exam in your answer sheet. The most important thing is that you need to keep the content relevant and keep a check on your verb tenses. While you would be moving fro tense to tense it may create some confusion while writing or while transitioning the content. Often you would need to switch tense which might upset the sequence of narration.

1. Try to Write the Essays in Present Tense

Generally, while writing essays, the writer must always use the present tense. If you wish to use the past tense then you need to refer to the events of the past. It shows the author’s ideas in a historical context. There is an exception to all these rules which explains that it is a narrative essay through which a writer can choose the past or present tense in the writing style. But the point that needs to consider is that the tense should remain consistent throughout the content.

When you are completely indulging in the writing process then it shows your effectiveness in every essay possible. Simple said, the answer would depend on the type of essay where you would be writing. When you are shifting tense from one to another, it becomes a bit distracting to the reader and they might leave it in the middle.

If you are discussing the narrative essay then it might become a bit of exception to the rule just because they will tell a fiction (a story). If you are relying on the tense (which will be past) to narrate some incidents or events then you need to refer to the writer’s perspective and his ideas just like historical entities.

If in an essay you are trying to state some facts which would refer to some perpetual or actions then you need to use the present tense. Suppose you are discussing your own ideas or expressing a particular work then also you can use the present tense.

You can use the present tense to describe the action in the work. It can also be some narrative fictional.

2. If you are trying to use multiple tenses in your essay then make sure that you do not lose the clarity in the work.

It often happens when the writer is trying to mix the tense while explaining two or three multiple situations or stories. The break between the tenses will confuse your audience or readers. Hence you need to be very careful while making that smooth transition between the tenses.

3. You can Mix the tenses For Bringing Out Various Colors And Variety

It is very important to mix tenses wherever it is necessary and appropriate but it should signal the changes between the time setting. When you mix the tenses it will show the major cause and effect of inter-locking events. The beautiful use of past and perfect is mainly used to show or describe the scene of an accident being very effective. It will give you a quality that will help you in haunting, live-on-memory, or any other event.

4. Practice Practice Practice….

When you are dealing with multiple sentences in a single content then you must practice using such sentences in your normal article writing routine. It will provide you a platform where you can try out your hand then proofread it to make sure everything is correct. Once this is done use can do the same for your main content. This way you will have a good practice of things and you won’t make any mistake.

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Anne Innis Dagg, Who Studied Giraffes in the Wild, Dies at 91

She was believed to be the first Western scientist to study the animals in their natural habitat, but she struggled to overcome sexism in academia.

By Clay Risen

Anne Innis Dagg, who broke ground in the 1950s as one of the world’s first biologists to study giraffes in the wild, then spent decades fighting sexism in Canadian universities before finally finding long-overdue acclaim in the 2010s, died on April 1 in Kitchener, Ontario, west of Toronto. She was 91.

Alison Reid, who documented Dr. Dagg’s life in the 2018 film “The Woman Who Loves Giraffes,” said the cause of her death, in a hospital, was pneumonia.

Dr. Dagg was often called “the Jane Goodall of giraffes,” but in a different world the attribution might have been reversed. Dr. Dagg traveled to Africa in 1956, four years before Dr. Goodall did her first fieldwork with primates; in fact, she is believed to have been the first Western scientist to study African animals of any type in the wild.

At the time, very little was known about the behavior of giraffes, especially outside zoos. Dr. Dagg spent more than nine months in the South African bush, observing for 10 hours a day from her beat-up Ford Prefect how the animals ate, mated, fought and played.

The results, which she presented first in a 1958 paper for the Zoological Society of London and later in a 1976 book, “The Giraffe: Its Biology, Behavior, and Ecology,” established her as the world’s leading expert on the gawky-legged, mottled Giraffa camelopardalis.

That recognition was not enough to overcome entrenched sexism within the academic world. She had a promising job as an assistant professor at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, and she had published significantly more peer-reviewed articles than some of her male colleagues. But her department chairman told her in 1971 that she was unlikely to reach tenure.

She applied for a similar position at Wilfrid Laurier University, also in Ontario, but was passed over for a less accomplished male candidate. She filed a complaint with the Ontario government; the issue was drawn out for nearly a decade, but the complaint was ultimately rejected.

Dr. Dagg spent short stints teaching at other universities before landing at the University of Waterloo as a part-time instructor. She used her spare time to write books on biology — she was among the first to study homosexual behavior in mammals — as well as on feminism and sexism.

Then, in 2010, a group of zookeepers invited her to attend a conference in Phoenix as their guest of honor. A vibrant field, giraffology, had sprouted around her many papers and, in particular, her 1976 book.

“Every zookeeper, every scientist, had it on their bookshelf, but no one knew her,” Ms. Reid, the filmmaker, said in a phone interview.

The attention grew from there: television documentaries, magazine profiles and finally Ms. Reid’s film, which introduced Dr. Dagg to international audiences. She was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 2019, the same year she received an official apology from the University of Guelph.

“I’ve been ignored my whole life, and just to find out now that I’m actually a person and people really think I’m interesting,” she said in an interview with The Guelph Mercury in 2019 . “It’s pretty amazing. I love it.”

Anne Christine Innis was born on Jan. 25, 1933, in Toronto. Her parents were both well-known academics at the University of Toronto. Her mother, Mary Quayle Innis, was a dean, as well as a novelist. Her father, Harold Innis , was chairman of the political economy department; one of the university’s constituent colleges was named in his honor.

She saw her first giraffe when she was 3, during a family vacation to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.

“It was very tall and I was very small,” she told CTV News in 2021 . “And I remember thinking: ‘This is beautiful. I think this is magnificent.’ And it went on from there.”

She received a bachelor’s degree with honors in biology in 1955 and a master’s in genetics a year later, both from the University of Toronto. All along, she focused on giraffes.

Her honors degree came with a small cash award, and with that money she looked for a way to get into the field. But she was rejected by more than a dozen African governments and foundations, with the thinly veiled message that women do not belong in that line of research.

She changed tactics and began giving her name as simply “A. Innis,” with better results. A rancher in South Africa with a 62,000-acre spread, home to about 95 giraffes, said she could stay with him. When she revealed her gender, he hesitated, but he ultimately welcomed her.

After nearly a year in Africa, she returned to Canada, and to academia, receiving her doctorate in animal behavior from the University of Waterloo in 1967. Her dissertation became the basis of her 1976 book, which she wrote with J. Bristol Foster — the first full-length scientific text on giraffes and, for years after, the only one.

She married Ian Dagg in 1957. He died in 1993. She is survived by their children, Mary, Hugh and Ian Dagg; her brother, Hugh; and a grandson.

Dr. Dagg’s many published works include a memoir, “Pursuing Giraffe” (2006), in which she recounted her time in Africa. The book, written in the present tense, ends on a bittersweet note, lamenting the fact that she would most likely never get back there.

“I’m grieving because my dream of a lifetime is over at 24,” she wrote. “I fear that I will never again visit the giraffe in Africa, and I never have.”

The book caught the attention of Ms. Reid, who considered it first for a feature film, then decided on a documentary. As part of the filming, she arranged for Dr. Dagg to return to the South African ranch where she had first worked, some 60 years prior — and to visit the giraffes where she thought she would never see them again.

Clay Risen is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk. More about Clay Risen