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!

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.

This is a good article from the University of Melbourne about using tense in scientific writing. It has helped me to get my head around the correct use of tense.

You may want to check your internal examiner's thesis.

I followed the advice of some folks in this forum.
However, my internal examiner disagreed.