PT2: Write a simple five-sentence paragraph about the background or history of the chosen food and underline the past tense and past perfect tense.
a student has written 5 sentences or more, and has used at least 3 sentences in the past tense and 3 sentences in the past perfect tense.
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Answer:
According to corpus research, in academic writing, the three tenses used the most often are the simple present, the simple past, and the present perfect (Biber et al., 1999; Caplan, 2012). The next most common tense for capstone writers is the future; the doctoral study/dissertation proposal at Walden is written in this tense for a study that will be conducted in the future.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of written and spoken English. Pearson. https://doi.org/10.1162/089120101300346831
Caplan, N. A. (2012). Grammar choices for graduate and professional writers. University of Michigan Press.
Simple present: Use the simple present to describe a general truth or a habitual action. This tense indicates that the statement is generally true in the past, present, and future.
Example: The hospital admits patients whether or not they have proof of insurance.
Simple past: Use the simple past tense to describe a completed action that took place at a specific point in the past (e.g., last year, 1 hour ago, last Sunday). In the example below, the specific point of time in the past is 1998.
Example: Zimbardo (1998) researched many aspects of social psychology.
Present perfect: Use the present perfect to indicate an action that occurred at a nonspecific time in the past. This action has relevance in the present. The present perfect is also sometimes used to introduce background information in a paragraph. After the first sentence, the tense shifts to the simple past.
Example: Numerous researchers have used this method.
Example: Many researchers have studied how small business owners can be successful beyond the initial few years in business. They found common themes among the small business owners.
Future: Use the future to describe an action that will take place at a particular point in the future (at Walden, this is used especially when writing a proposal for a doctoral capstone study).
Example: I will conduct semistructured interviews.
Keep in mind that verb tenses should be adjusted after the proposal after the research has been completed. See this blog post about Revising the Proposal for the Final Capstone Document for more information.
Explanation: