 |
 |
Good morning colleagues, To Anne's questions 1,2,+5a: Yes. To questions 3,4, +5b: No. American publications are still moving away from the ivory tower, and towards increased brevity, clarity and readability. KISS rule still applies in writing (Keep It Simple Stupid). Depending on the language one is composing in, there exist a wealth of verb tenses which can succinctly express the concrete differences in time. It is important to teach them all. Finally, the golden rule is consistency. When you pick a tense for a section, idea, a report, a theory, or an experiment, be very careful to STICK TO IT! This is the biggest weakness I find in all non-native and native papers I edit. Hope you are enjoying a sunny day, Kathy Kathleen OBrien Ramirez, Ph.D. -Through Aug 31, 2011: Université de Poitiers, A5: 0,26 MSHS: CeRCA-CNRS UMR6234 5 rue Théodore Lefebre 86000 Poitiers, France http://www.eldel.eu/France [log in to unmask] office phone: +33(0)549 36 63 45 fax: +33 (0)549 45 46 16 home (through August 2011): Apt 35 61 Rue Carnot 86000 Poitiers, France mobile telephone: +33 (0)636 61 62 92 home phone: +33 (0)516 83 5079 permanent USA telephone: +1.520.481.2538 [log in to unmask] c/o Mona O'Brien 3003 West Broadway Blvd #82 Tucson, AZ 85745 USA --- On Fri, 7/22/11, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote: From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Tense use when citing in academic English To: [log in to unmask] Date: Friday, July 22, 2011, 1:03 AM Dear All Sorry this is only really relevant for teachers of English, but I would be grateful for any comments/information on the following. I mainly teach written academic English in short workshops in Germany. When I started holding these workshops about 4 years ago, I was happy to follow what the books said about using different tenses for reporting verbs when citing other literature in the introduction stage of a paper. In the workshops, this usually meant going into more detail on generalisations, information-prominence, author-prominence and agreement with previous findings and how to use the simple past, present perfect and present tenses in these contexts. However, in recent workshops I have asked participants (the majority with an economics or social science background) to look at native speaker papers and see which tenses are being used in the literature survey - if there is one. Most of the responses I am getting indicate a strong use of the present tense, with little use of past or present perfect. This is not in line with what my books are suggesting. In the two fairly recent papers I currently have on my desk (both from the social science area) I find that one of them subtly uses the implicit differences between the past and the present tense to suggest agreement, the other one only uses the present tense. I know the economist Prof. John Cochrane recommended (2005) using the present tense in Ph.D. papers to show commitment/take responsibility, and I have a paper from 1998 by J. Thurstun and C. Candlin that found the present tense being used in the papers available in a database. This raises several questions for me 1) Are the books suggesting an ideal that isn't being kept to in real papers? 2) Has the use of tense changed with time and the books haven't been able to keep up-to-date? 3) Is what I am finding only true for the areas I am mainly working in (economics in the broader sense and social science)? 4) If the majority of the readers of academic papers are non-native speakers are they getting the messages implicitly portrayed in the use of various tenses as suggested by the books? 5) Related to question 3 - should we be teaching the use of the variety of tenses if we wish to work with or support Global English? 5) Does anyone know of any recent research into the topic using larger databases than my participants/my own observations? Any comments are welcome, but as a teacher (rather than a researcher) I would be particularly interested to know how others are dealing with this issue when teaching. Many thanks Anne Wegner - Freelance teacher (www.ipels.de) p.s. if anyone is interested in the file I have put together with related quotes from the books/papers I have available, send me a mail ([log in to unmask]) and I'll send it to them.