Verb Tense in Journal Articles

Greetings again. I hope you’re doing well.

Last month a reader requested guidance on using verb tenses appropriately in scientific papers. Here’s some basic guidance in this regard.

Choosing the right verb tense usually is easiest in the methods and results sections. In general, these sections are entirely (or almost entirely) in past tense. That’s because they report items from the past: what you did and what you found.

Thus, in a methods section you might write, “We divided the participants into groups,” “Each group received a different diet,” and “X, Y, and Z were measured weekly.” In the results section you might write, “X increased most in Group A,” “Y decreased only in Group B,” and “Z did not change significantly in any group.”

Verb-tense choices tend to be more difficult in the introduction and discussion. These sections have a mix of tenses, depending on the meaning.

For instance, in an introduction, one might write: “Disease D is [present tense] a serious problem. In 2015, it caused [past tense] more than ___ deaths. Nguyen and Hernandez found [past tense] that Treatment E decreases mortality [present tense, for established knowledge]. However, this treatment is [present tense] expensive.”

Similarly, in a discussion, one might write: “We found [past tense] that Treatment F decreases mortality as much as Treatment E [present tense, for a conclusion]. This finding is consistent with those of Wang and Qureshi, who conducted a smaller study. . . . Overall, our findings suggest that . . .”

For more guidance, I recommend “Verb Tense in Scientific Manuscripts” by Ben Mudrak. Also, because norms differ somewhat among disciplines, I suggest noticing verb-tense use in some good journals in your field.

Until the next post—

Barbara