(May I first say it's very welcome to see a practical
teaching question on the forum! Why not!? I’m also a plain vanilla
practitioner, though I’m only in the classroom once a year these days.
So, a few observations from the world of editing (for
publishers or for authors) in different fields, ordered according to your
question numbers. I hope they’ll be useful:
1-3) Some advice on tense use (whether found in
journal instructions or in textbooks) reflects the empirical sciences. In
contrast, what you're seeing in economics probably reflects the discussion of proposed
ideas, the author’s own or others'; their texts build up theoretical
systems on the page. This explains the use of a "literary" present in
citing (so-and-so insists that...), especially if the citing author agrees and
plans to take up the same line of argument. We also see the present, by the
way, in some engineering disciplines that rely highly on mathematical proofs. Their
findings, too, are built up inside the text, shown as they write them down (and
we readers re-perceive them as we read, in the present); these epistemic
cultures don’t report something they “found" in a prior
analysis of data that's outside the text.
1-2) Note that the recent trend in editing is toward
not doing any copyediting to speak of at all once an article is accepted. (I
refer readers to Elsevier's description of what copyediting means nowadays, and
I'd even say their account overstates what's actually done on some journals and
by some other publishers: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/languageediting/copyediting).
So expect to see articles in print that may or may not have been written by an
expert user of the language (no matter whether a native or nonnative speaker);
they will be relatively raw, never edited consistently overall according to “received”
criteria. Unless a particular journal has hands-on editors on the board or copyeditors
hired with the journal's own budget, expect to see true "errors"
getting into print nowadays. Something similar happened in publishing at the
end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s when restructuring plus adjustments to
new technology made editorial quality uneven. There are even journals in some
fields now that require the equivalent of "photo-ready" copy from
authors, submitted on templates. But even when no templates are used, the
editorial work consists of applying heading styles and manuscript ordering,
electronically checking certain things in the references, adding tags, and then
automatically generating the page proof.
3) As I’ve said above, I think the tense use you
describe is broader than your field. Where authors are reporting or commenting
on reports of research events accomplished (whether interventional or planned observations)
expect to see the tense use you described at first (use of the past to state their
and others' findings if also experimental). There may be a tendency to prefer
present perfect when strong agreement is about to be discussed, but the default
tense for others' findings (or indeed, one's own) would be past. Yes, this may
well be an ideal nowadays, but why teach tense CONFUSion?
5, the first one) In my opinion, we should teach as
you have done -- having learners choose exemplary texts in the right field and
within the right genre for them. Use what the books/researchers/instructions to
authors say to help students interpret what they're seeing in their
mini-corpus.
5, the second one) Look at Joy Burrough’s thesis
for an interesting study of how peer readers perceive tense use (when they
do!).
Culture
and conventions: writing and reading Dutch scientific English
www.lotpublications.nl/publish/articles/000141/bookpart.pdf
And this article:
Burrough-Boenisch, Joy. 2003. “Examining present tense
conventions in scientific writing in the light of reader reactions to three
Dutch-authored discussions”. English for Specific Purposes
22/1, 5-24.
Translation & Editing - Writing & Education
Barcelona, Spain
Tel/Fax: 34 934 080997
-----Original Message-----
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 10:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Tense use when citing in academic English
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.