![]() ![]() General guideline: Establish a primary tense for the main discourse, and use occasional shifts to other tenses to indicate changes in time frame. Workers are installing extra loudspeakers because the music in tonight's concert will need amplification.Īre installing is present progressive, referring to an ongoing action in the current time frame (the workers are still installing, and have not finished ) will need is future, referring to action expected to begin after the current time frame (the concert will start in the future, and that's when it will need amplification.) Controlling shifts in a paragraph or essay General guideline: Do not shift from one tense to another if the time frame for each action or state is the same.ģ. Even apparently non-narrative writing should employ verb tenses consistently and clearly. Generally, writers maintain one tense for the main discourse and indicate changes in time frame by changing tense relative to that primary tense, which is usually either simple past or simple present. But unnecessary or inconsistent shifts in tense can cause confusion. Changes in verb tense help readers understand the temporal relationships among various narrated events. Sometimes we narrate a story as our main purpose in writing sometimes we include brief anecdotes or hypothetical scenarios as illustrations or reference points in an essay.Įven an essay that does not explicitly tell a story involves implied time frames for the actions discussed and states described. Throughout this document, example sentences with nonstandard or inconsistent usage have verbs in red. This handout explains and describes the sequence of verb tenses in English. Writing Letters of Recommendation for Students. ![]()
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