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S

Signup date: 23 May 2014 at 9:25am

Last login: 23 May 2014 at 9:27am

Post count: 2

Samm1 2 posts
10 years ago

Quote From marasp:
Make sure that you keep some sort of balance in your sentences. Don't start with past and then carry on with present on the same sentence, but make them match instead. Your use of tenses in the examples about John (2012) are both acceptable. But your example of the '8 hypotheses' would sound better if the tenses were the same, in my opinion. What you need to make sure is that your abstract is written in past tense. This is what my supervisor told me. Past tense shows that you did the research - and that you are not still doing it. It gives a sense of completion of the thesis.

Thank you for your help! It feels such a simple task but I'm struggling with it! Reading your thoughts - what I might do is to talk about other peoples studies always in past tense.Then I think I will put all my hypothesis in past tense so to coincide with the past tense that I use when I talk about my studies. But have the thesis narrative in present tense...

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Samm1 2 posts
10 years ago

Hello everyone,

I am doing a PhD in Geography and have a question I am confused about and would be grateful if anyone can help. It relates to PhD writing.

When using tenses to describe past work I use past tense. So, john (2012) found that xxx. But when discussing what they say and infer I use present tense. So, john (2012) suggests that xx. Should these both be past tense.

Also, when writing about my study I have used past tense. This study has shown xx. Or I recruited participants by xx. But when I talk about hypothesis these are in present tense... So it reads something like this: the study tested 8 hypothesis. First it is expected that xx. Thus a first hypothesis is xx. Is this wrong?

I'm really confused... Does this sound ok. I'd be very grateful for any help!

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