Disertation tense problems

I have written 7000 words out 10,000 so but my supervisor said it has to be all in past tense, however I am not finding it very difficult to do this as describing theories in past tense is very difficult. So far all theries are in current tense and what I have done is all in past tense. The report is how written purely in third person.

I am wondering if I have got the wrong end of the stick and by past tense he just mean't third person?

My supervisor is off work till next week now so I can't esk him till then.

Just wondered if other people have written their dissertations purely in past tense.

Thanks - I want to get my final year project done by the end of holidays so I can concentrate on my other assignments and not having to rush everything.

 

Formal reports should always be written like this:

Instead of:

The second example has (fairly typical of a lot of reports) incorrectly mixed tenses in it. You should never, ever use the words "I" or "we" in a report, and you should not address the reader (eg "so you can see from the graph". Instead use "It can be seen from the graph").

It's well worth having a third party proof-read any piece of work like this even (or especially) if they do not understand the technical content.

 

This what I thought, so far everything is written in the form

"this makes it easier for the developer" rather than "this makes it easier for me"

or "the following diagram shows..." instead of "you can see from the following diagram"

So I think I am doing ok, its just things like this which confuse me

It isn't past sense as such but I can't say following tasks were performed as this in the research section, I haven't actually discussed how application was produced at this point.

 

Indeed. I would have thought that the past tense and third person were the correct way to go,

I wouldn't have thought that anyone at that level of education would confuse the third person and the past tense. Or should that be

It was thought to be unlikely that an educated person responsible for the education of undergraduates would confuse the past tense with the third person.

Isaacs advice is good. My mum read all of my stuff, and despite not understanding any of it, did a very good job of spotting errors. Do it as you go along section by section, then it's much more manageable

 

Could be:

In order for the application to determine which processors, motherboards and memory modules were compatible the following tasks had to be performed.

 

Yeah I will get my mum to check it, I have already got my mum to get the it upto 5000 words, even she was having trouble with the tenses and she used to a medical secretary.

Its not the fact I am confused about what past or current tense means, it just I am confused if he means past tense as in everything has to be past tense. Its going to be a difficult rewording job. I will try and go in next week and show him what I have written, if he says its crap I guess I will just have to reword it.

Somthing like this is a better example as the developer could be anybody its not directly related to my project, but could to be any project

Its not past tense but to convert to past tense it won't sound right

But it didn't because I didn't use Visual Studio

But it still does!

 

ahhhh, style over content. what a wonderful education system we have.
i never understood the propensity that 'formal' documentation has for making even the most interesting subjects as boring as possible. i remember the first itteration of a physics engine's docs that went off into schroedingers cat jokes and descriptions that were applicable to applications that you could see yourself using. you found yourself reading it with interest rather than squirming to get away from the psychic aura of musty old professor.
in the latest incarnation if you want to find out what a function does the easiest way is to go and hack the header files. utter madness.
cheers


julian.

 

Visual Studio could also have been used to compile the code behind file into a dynamic link library?

 

I guess acemdics are want to be like robots, they want the marking to be as easy as possible, if all reports are written in the same way it makes it easier.

I cannot understand why it must be written in third person but the fact everything should be written in past tense even if it is not seems a bit over the top. Also there is nothing in my project guide that says it must be written in past tense, it does however clearly state that it must be written in third person (i.e you can't say I, we, you etc).

 

That make sense I guess, but as I didn't use Visual Studio there is no other way of doing it for ASP.NET so I couldn't do it. The reason I couldn't use VS was becuase I would have need IIS, which basicaly would have required a new operating system costing me £100.

I think that makes sense. I guess I will be busy tomorrow rewording it

Thanks.

Edit I am still not sure how put things which are still current in past tense though.

For example

Product X was used because it had z features.

But it still has those features.

 

Write it in iambic pentameter.

-- Ian

 

Are you sure he said "past tense" not "passive voice"? Here's what they want:
"Smith and Jones (1999) found [past tense] no effect of cable type on subjective ratings of performance... In the present experiment it was confirmed [passive voice, past tense] that cable type had [past tense] no effect on spouse's enjoyment, as measured by EEG. This pattern, however, was contradicted by Collier (2005, personal communication).

The dog bit the man [active voice/man, present tense]
The man is being bitten by the dog [passive, present]
The dog bit the man [active, past]
The man was bitten by the dog [passive, past]

I know it's terrible style, but that's the way it is wanted [passive voice] and I'm complicit by being an external examiner

 

This what I am not sure about. He said write in past tense. I have spoken to some students about this at another forum and they said it didn't quite seem right that it should all have to be past tense. There is nothing in the guidelines either.

I really need to show my desertation to my supervisor next week and see what he thinks.

It does have to be in third person style like your quote

"Smith and Jones (1999) found [past tense] no effect of cable type on subjective ratings of performance... In the present experiment it was confirmed [passive voice, past tense] that cable type had [past tense] no effect on spouse's enjoyment, as measured by EEG. This pattern, however, was contradicted by Collier (2005, personal communication).

I found a diesertation from an undergraduate at Sheffield and that was mixed tense i.e was for what they did and is for theory but it was all written like such a such found etc.

Erm my last sentance didn't make sense

 

Even if you cite a paper that exists now as you read it and write: "Today's Times says that..." they still want you to say "the Times (April 1, 2005) reported that..." Maybe the reasoning goes that the only thing you know for sure is what the authors thought when they wrote it, not how they feel now, plus that everything is past, relative to you writing the thesis. I agree that it is merely a trick to lend some spurious objectivity. The worst of all is to mix past and present and actor in the same thing, IMHO. "First, the urine was collected in a sterile bucket, then we usually pour it into the Michell Hydraulic Reference ..."

PS perhaps there's the issue of reported speech too:
" "All reporters are wankers,"
according to Prince Charles " or " Price Charles said that all reporters were wankers [at the time he said it in the past]"

 

I suppose there is some logic in that, I just think its a bit much suddently expecting us to write in this way when he have never had to before. All we have ever had to in the past is use third person "i.e the developer did this..." and se the Harvard method for referencing.

It just seems a very difficult thing to when you're dealing with 10,000 words. I had another report which I had to a few months ago for a different subject, that was 5500 words although it was a minimum of 2000 (woops, I may have failed that even though still took 1000 words of woffle out) but that report was so much easier to write than ths one.

Part of the problem is all I have done for my project is do produce a fairly complex website, so as you can imagine my diseration is woffle by its very nature.

 

Ha! you have it easy - how do you fancy a Norwegian native correcting your English for not using the subjunctive correctly? http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/061.html

 

ian,
i would have though hiku would have been more your style

 

Don't give up AT!!!!

 

No, no NO !!! Dactylic hexameter for this type of work

See me after class.

 

May I suggest a Joycean stream of consciousness?