ACADEMIC/RESEARCH WRITINGBY ATYHA REHMAN

LAHORE LEADS UNIVERSITY ,LAHORE PAKISTAN

Appropriate use of tense

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).

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).

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 .

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 .

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

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”

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.

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."

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”

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."

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]."

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

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”.

Active/passive in research writings…

Avoid too much use of passive voice !

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.

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.

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”.

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

“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 .

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 .

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 .

“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)

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 .

“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”.

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 .

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