Tense, voice, person, word meaning

Tense, voice, person

• In Introduction

• Use mostly present or present perfect tense, and active voice, except when describing previous findings/studies

[48] Areas of frequent chromosomal loss have recently been identified in the head and neck cancer.

• Use the first person pronoun we to show the cooperative effort by your group members and you.

[49] In this study, we used both agglomerative hierarchical clustering method and Heatmap …

[50] Though the elementary work we conducted may not be satisfactory in the research aspect, … we believe we could get further results …

• In Methodology

• Use particularly past tense for describing the methodological procedures done for the project study

[51] We used agglomerative hierarchical clustering for …

• Use active voice and mostly third person pronouns it/they following the corresponding noun phrases, except when stating what your group does/has do

• In Data analysis/Findings and Results

• Use present tense for describing graphic information

• Use past tense for describing original findings

[53] We found that patient HN116 had the genes that …

• Use mostly third person pronouns it/they following the corresponding noun phrases, while avoiding the excessive use of the first person pronoun we

• Use passive voice

[54] It can be seen clearly that …

• In Discussion

• Use mostly present tense, active voice, third person pronouns it/they following the corresponding noun phrases e.g. the box plots, and the first person pronoun we

• In Conclusion

• For findings and analytical procedures: past tense, present perfect tense
• For limitations of the current study: past tense
• For expectations and implications for future potential works/studies: present tense, future tense
• Use active voice and the first person pronoun we

Word meaning

Beware of the following common errors on word meaning:

[55] Latter in this report …

ü Later in this report …

[56] The following part/section will talk about …

ü The following part/section will be about …