Another common feature when the content of college writing puts you out of your comfort zone is a lack of consistency in the tense of your verbs. Cognitively taxed writers (a state we all inhabit at some point) often start a sentence in one tense but ended up in another. Like in that sentence: the first verb start is in the present tense, but ended is in the past tense. The correct version of the sentence would be “Cognitively taxed writers (a state we all inhabit at some point) often start a sentence in one tense but end up in another.”

These glitches often occur when writers change their minds halfway through writing the sentence, or when they come back and make changes but only end up changing half the sentence. Maintaining a consistent tense is one of the conventions of standardized English, not just within a sentence but across paragraphs and pages. Decide if something happened, is happening, or will happen and then stick with that choice unless a specific sentence logically demands a change.

Read through the following paragraphs to spot the errors in tense.

If you want to pick up a new outdoor activity, hiking is a great option to consider. It’s a sport that is suited for a beginner or an expert—it just depended on the difficulty of the hikes you chose. However, even the earliest beginners can complete difficult hikes if they pace themselves and were physically fit.

Not only is hiking an easy activity to pick up, it also will have some great payoffs. As you walked through canyons and climbed up mountains, you can see things that you wouldn’t otherwise. The views are breathtaking, and you will get a great opportunity to meditate on the world and your role in it. The summit of a mountain is unlike any other place in the world.

What inconsistencies did you spot? Let’s take another look at this passage. This time, the tense-shifted verbs have been bolded, and the phrases they belong to have been underlined:

If you want to pick up a new outdoor activity, hiking is a great option to consider. It’s a sport that is suited for a beginner or an expert—it just depended on the difficulty of the hikes you chose. However, even the earliest beginners can complete difficult hikes if they pace themselves and were physically fit.

Not only is hiking an easy activity to pick up, it also will have some great payoffs. As you walked through canyons and climbed up mountains, you can see things that you wouldn’t otherwise. The views are breathtaking, and you will get a great opportunity to meditate on the world and your role in it. The summit of a mountain is unlike any other place in the world.

Generally, your whole passage should be consistent in its tense. You may have noticed that the most of the verbs in this passage are in present tense—this is especially apparent if you ignore those verbs that have been bolded. In many academic disciplines, writing in the present tense is the convention. You may well be writing about something that happened in the past: Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe 300 years ago; Emile Durkheim developed his concept of the division of labor in the late nineteenth century. You, however, are thinking about the significance of Defoe’s novel or Durkheim’s theory now, so the ideas, and the texts, and your brain are all operating in the present moment. That’s why we write, “Defoe elevates socially marginalized protagonists,” not “Defoe elevated.” Or, “Durkheim focuses on the shift in societies from simple to complex,” not “Durkheim focused.” But writing in the present tense is a convention, which means it can vary from one discipline to another, so check with your instructors.

Now that we’ve established that the passage about hiking should be in the present tense, let’s address each of the underlined segments:

• It’s a sport that is suited for a beginner or an expert—it just depended on the difficulty of the hikes you choose.
  • depended should be the same tense as is; it just depends on the difficulty
• if they pace themselves and were physically fit.
  • were should be the same tense as pace; if they pace themselves and are physically fit.
• Not only is hiking an easy activity to pick up, it also will have some great payoffs.
  • will have should be the same tense as is; it also has some great pay offs
• As you walked through canyons and climbed up mountains
  • walked and climbed are both past tense, but this doesn’t match the tense of the passage as a whole. They should both be changed to present tense: As you walk through canyons and climb up mountains.
•  The views are breathtaking, and you will get a great opportunity to meditate on the world and your role in it.
  • will get should be the same tense as are; you get a great opportunity

Here’s the standardized passage as a whole; all edited verbs have been bolded:

If you want to pick up a new outdoor activity, hiking is a great option to consider. It’s a sport that can be suited for a beginner or an expert—it just depends on the difficulty of the hikes you choose. However, even the earliest beginners can complete difficult hikes if they pace themselves and are physically fit.

Not only is hiking an easy activity to pick up, it also has some great payoffs. As you walk through canyons and climb up mountains, you can see things that you wouldn’t otherwise. The views are breathtaking, and you get a great opportunity to meditate on the world and your role in it. The summit of a mountain is unlike any other place in the world.