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Posts by PsychWriter
Joined: May 15, 2010		 Last Post: May 19, 2010
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PsychWriter   
May 15, 2010
Research Papers / Research paper: Which tense to use when describing well established tests? (APA) [6]

Hi everybody,

I'm currently working on my master thesis in psychology and would appreciate a little help on which tenses should be used under which circumstances. As far as I were able to understand from APA style guides, it is common to use past tense in the introduction and in the methods paragraph unless describing well established facts (e.g. "subjects were instructed to press the button..." but "it has been known for decades that one plus one equals two"). I'm not sure though which tense to use when describing well known test procedures within the methods paragraph, i.e., procedures that have been used by many researchers over and over again and are rather well known among researchers in this field of research. By intuition I was inclined to use present tense for these descriptions, since the tests were used in the same way before and will be used in the same way later, and thus resemble established facts. But I'm not sure... Any advice?

regards,

PsychWriter

P.S.: I'm not a native english speaker, so please excuse any mistakes (you may laugh, though)
PsychWriter   
May 17, 2010
Research Papers / Research paper: Which tense to use when describing well established tests? (APA) [6]

Hi Kevin,

first of all, many thanks for your advice! I'm sorry - of course I'm using present tense in the introduction when talking about literature - seemingly, I was somewhat scatterbrained when I started this thread (and I did not take a look at my introduction for too long :)

As you suggest, I use past tense (and passive voice) within the methods paragraph when describing what was done. I utilized some well known and frequently used test procedures, though, and it seems odd to me to also use past tense when describing e.g. which kind of value a specific test procedure or questionnaire yields, or which kind of actions are necessary to conduct the test, because these values or actions are the same each time the test is conducted.

For example: "Fagerstroem Test for Nicotine Dependence: Six items concerning nicotine consumption and craving for nicotine yield a score between 0 and 10 points to indicate the severity of nicotine dependence"

Regards,

PsychWriter
PsychWriter   
May 17, 2010
Research Papers / Research paper: Which tense to use when describing well established tests? (APA) [6]

To clarifiy the distinction between the two aspects I'm talking about: While the above sentence specifies how the test works (in present tense), a preceding sentence tells the reader that I used the test (in past tense):

"The degree of nicotine dependence was assesed by means of the Fagerstroem Test for Nicotine Dependence. Six items concerning nicotine consumption and craving for nicotine yield a score between 0 and 10 points to indicate the severity of nicotine dependence"
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