Using tenses in essays
Differences between written and spoken English
1.1. The Present Tense:
a. Present Simple is used for …
General statements that are true for today, yesterday and
tomorrow:
FORMULA :
S + V1 (s/es) + O
Exampel :
Australians speak English.
I don’t eat meat.
Habitual actions:
The train is often late.
b. Present Progressive (or Continuous) is used for …
Actions that are current and temporary, and ongoing around
the present time:
FORMULA :
S + (is,am,are) + Ving + O
Example :
It’s spring now. The days are getting warmer.
I can’t answer the phone now,I’m having a shower.
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c. Present Perfect is used for …
Actions that started in the past and have not finished (link to
now – have a present result):
FORMULA :
S + have/has + V3 + O
Example
I have lived in Melbourne for 2 years.
(I still live here)
When the time period has not finished:
I have seen three movies this week.
(This week is not finished)
When the time is not important, but the result is:
He has failed his exam.
(It does not matter when)
Spoken English The Present Tense:
Exceptions to note in the use of the present tense:
1. Some verbs rarely, if ever, use the present progressive tense:
Mental and emotional states: believe, hate, know, like, love, prefer, think,
understand, want (e.g. Not ‘I am wanting to meet you.’)
Senses: hear, see, smell, taste.
Appearance: appear, look, seem
Possession: belong, have, own, possess
Inclusion: comprise, consist, contain, include, involve
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2. Present tenses are frequently used to express the future (See ‘Other ways
of expressing the future’ in this flyer.)
Present tense in essays
In essays, use present tense to:
• Make generalisations about your topic or other authors’ views:
Two artefacts provide insight into ancient Hindu culture.
Marxist historians argue that class conflicts shape political
affairs.
• Cite an author or to refer to what an author says (even if the author is
dead):
Shakespeare depicts the fight for Troy as a war without glory.
Pauli’s exclusion principle states that no two electrons can
have the same four quantum numbers.
• Present your interpretations (opinions) and the interpretations of
others:
The “White Australia Policy”, which ended in 1973,
represents one of the darkest periods of European settlement
in Australia.
• Describe events in fiction or films:
In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Aragon encounters numerous
misfortunes throughout his travels.
In the Iliad, finally the gods freely intervene on behalf of both
the Trojans and the Greeks.
• Describe an idea or fact that is always true:
Genetic information is encoded in DNA.
• Use present perfect to describe an event in the text previous to main
event you are describing
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Convinced that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him,
Othello strangles her.
2.2. The Past Tense
a. Past Simple is used for …
An action started and finished in the past:
FORMULA :
S + V2 + O
S + (was/were) + Adv/Adj/Noun
Example
I lived in Sydney for two years, then I moved to
Melbourne.
I was born in Sydney
b. Past Progressive (or Continuous) is used for …
A repeated or continuous action in the past:
FORMULA :
S + was/were + Ving + O
Example :
I was studying all morning.
An activity which provides background to a single event:
Awareness of climate change was already growing
when Gore launched ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.
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c. Past Perfect is used for …
A past event that clearly happened before another past
event:
FORMULA :
S + had + V3
Example :
By the time troops arrived in the country, the conflict
had already ended.
Past Tense in Essays
In essays, use past tense for:
• Completed actions that occurred in the past
Hemingway drew on his experiences in World War I in
constructing the character of Jake Barnet.
Dulay and Burt conducted their studies in the early seventies.
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1.3. Future Tense
a. Future Simple is used to …
Give information about a future event which is not
obviously about to happen, or to predict a future
event
FORMULA
S + will + V1
Example :
The weather report says it will rain tomorrow.
This paper will focus on…
b. Future Progressive (or Continuous) is used to …
Show that something will be in progress at a point
in the future
FORMULA :
S + will + be + Ving + O
Example :
This time tomorrow, I will be lying on the
beach!
c. Future Perfect is used to …
Say that something will be finished or complete by a
certain time in the future
FORMULA :
S + will + have + V3 + O
Example :
Next time you see me,I will have finished all my
essays.
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‘Going to’ is used instead of ‘will’ when there is strong intention
Tomorrow, I’mgoing togive up smoking. (Strong feeling or conviction)
When we can see the evidence of a future event It’s going to rain. (You can
see black clouds in the sky)
(Note: This form is rather informal, and best avoided in academic
writing.)
Some possible alternatives: ‘(highly) likely to’, ‘it is a foregone conclusion’,
‘will very probably’, ‘is destined to’, ‘is certain to’.
For example:
Informal: The government is going to hold an election in September.
Academic Style: An election is scheduled for September.
Informal: This model is going to fail.
Academic Style: This model is likely to fail.
Verb tense consistency
Keep tenses consistent within your text. The same context or event usually
requires the same tense.
The film Clueless toldtells the story of Cher Horowitz a good-natured
but superficial girl. Cher is attractive, popular, and extremely wealthy.
When changing tenses in a paragraph, use ‘signalling words’ or time
phrases, e.g. since then, currently, now, in the past / future
Active or Passive Voice?
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Some uses of the passive voice:
To put the focus of the sentence on the ‘action’ rather than the ‘actor’.
This is common in academic essays and reports.
Results were analysed using the two-sample t-test. (TRUE)
I analysed the results using… (FALSE ) (‘I’ is given too much
importance here.)
To create emphasis by shifting important information to the end of a
sentence.
The government failed to reduce the conflict. This issue was finally
addressed by the UN.
To shift wordy expressions to the end of a sentence.
Tension was heightened by the sinking of a peacekeeping ship in
international waters.
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1.4. Simple Sentences
Simple sentence is analyzed based on independent clause that consists
of minimally one subject and one verb, and it expresses a complete thought.
Subject and verb can be formed to be single or compound subject and single
or compound verb. In simple sentence, there are four kinds they are statement,
request, question, and exclamation. A simple sentence includes just one
independent clause and expresses a complete thought. Minimally, this means
having a subject and a verb (i.e. an action word), such as in:
Subject Verb
She… …sneezed.
Other verbs require an object (these are known as transitive verbs). A
sentence with an object can still be simple, though, since it remains a single
independent clause:
Subject Verb Object
He… …played… …the violin.
Not all ‘simple’ sentences are quite this simple, since we can add extra
information to a sentence without changing the basic structure. Take the
following, for example:
He and I both play the violin badly.
Here, we have a compound subject (‘He and I’), a determiner (‘both’),
a verb (‘play’), a direct object (‘the violin’) and an adverb (‘badly’).
Nevertheless, it’s still a simple sentence.
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1.5. Compound Sentences
Compound sentence is analyzed based on two or more independent
clauses connected by a coordinating conjunction, punctuation alone and
sentence connector. If we have more than one independent clause in a
sentence, it becomes a compound sentence. Usually, this will involve joining
the two clauses with a coordinating conjunction:
Clause 1 Coordinating Conjunction Clause 2
She sneezed,… …and… …I jumped.
‘And’ is possibly the most common coordinating conjunction, but you
can use the acronym FANBOYS to help you remember the complete set (i.e.
For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So).
The important thing is that the statements on either side of the
conjunction in a compound sentence could work as sentences by themselves.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that you should use a comma before the
conjunction when linking two independent clauses.
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