Writing a thesis takes endurance. Your verb tenses drift when you write for weeks across multiple chapters. You describe your method in past tense. You switch to present tense in your results. You add future tense in a section you drafted earlier. Your advisor marks the shifts fast.
You catch many of these issues when you edit with purpose. Trinka’s free grammar checker helps spot the shift your eyes miss after repeated rereads. You still need to know the rules. When you understand why tense signals meaning, you revise faster and write with fewer mistakes.
Why tense consistency matters
You might wonder what the big deal is about whether you used the past tense or the present tense in describing your experiment, you got the information across in both instances anyway. The thing is, when it comes to verb tense, it’s a clue about when it’s happening (that is, when it’s happening in terms of the text) and about how it relates to other information in the text.
More importantly, this is how tense is used purposefully in academic writing to distinguish between what is known, what you are actually doing, and what is being discussed. By learning these rules, your writing will sound much better and much more authoritative. Trust, your thesis committee is not being finicky, they are actually teaching you how to communicate effectively.
Knowing Standard Tense Conventions in Thesis Writing
The various parts of your thesis require writing in different tenses, and this is a great starting point for you. A literature review is usually conducted in present tense as you write about what other authors have found out or have argued (“This is supported by Smith, who writes that.” or “This has been found by recent studies.”). When writing about what these other authors have done in their studies, use the past tense (“A study by Smith conducted in 2020 found that.”).
Lastly, your methodology section almost always seems to use past tense because you are writing about actions you took in the past. “Participants filled out a survey” or “It took six months to collect data” are common methodology section sentence leads. Not only does this make grammatical sense, but these are actions you’ve taken, events in your research timeline that are complete. Your results section will follow this same pattern.
The discussion section gets trickier because you’re moving between your specific findings (past tense) and their broader implications (often present tense). You might write, “The data showed a correlation” (past tense for your specific finding) and then “This suggests that the relationship remains relevant” (present tense for ongoing implications). This mixing is normal and appropriate; the key is being intentional about when and why you shift.
Developing Your Personal Consistency Plan
Even before you begin to write or while you’re in the first stages of your process, you can make yourself a basic guide for your own use. You can make a list of your thesis sections and mark which of your active tenses each corresponds with. It can serve as something you can refer to as you’re working on your thesis, literally post it on your working area as you go along.
You may want to write each chapter or section in separate chunks rather than leaping about in your thesis. By concentrating on one section at a time, you are more likely to remain in the correct tense because you are thinking of the relevant bit of your research at the same time. To write in chores of methodology and return to the literature review within an hour may get the tense mixed up.
Catching and Correcting Inconsistencies
No matter how good your intentions are, there will necessarily creep in tense issues, it’s just not realistic for a document of 50,000 to 100,000 words. Plan some targeted editing sessions solely on tense issues. Do not attempt to correct all issues at one time; rather, proofread your thesis section by section, scanning for issues of tense rather than content.
One technique that is helpful is to read the text aloud. The ear will pick up on tense changes that the eye misses. “Doesn’t sound right” is often a tense problem. Highlight these areas and come back to them, fresh eyes will help to figure out the fix.
When Tense Shifts Are Actually Appropriate
Not all tense shifts are errors; sometimes they are intentional and justified. In situations where you are comparing what a given individual did in a given study (past tense) contrasted with what their research proves in general (present tense), the use of changing tenses is very intentional. The trick is to ensure that each tense change has a rationale for which you can provide a justification upon request.
Similarly, when discussing ongoing debates or current states of knowledge, present tense is appropriate even within a predominantly past-tense section. “The methodology followed established protocols (past tense), although debate continues (present tense) about the best approach.” This mixing reflects the reality that your research exists in a larger, ongoing conversation.
Building Long-Term Tense Awareness
While you are working to correct tense issues in your thesis, you are also teaching your brain to pay attention to tense in every piece of academic writing you do. You will find that published papers in your area of study are also paying attention to tense, and you will begin to pick up on its nuances.
Trinka’s free grammar checker will also help you a lot in the final stages of editing as you strive to have cohesion in the entire thesis. The software will examine the entire document to look for any tense inconsistency that may inappropriately cut across the entire thesis. You will just paste the parts of the thesis in the software to have the entire document examined for any tense inconsistency. You will, in turn, examine the entire report to see if the inconsistency is an inappropriate tense change to have in the thesis. The software will help you have a professional thesis that will positively showcase the research.