Have you ever had trouble choosing the correct verb tense for your research paper? If you answered “Yes”, read on to find out how to choose verb tense for impactful scientific writing.

Most scientific research papers follow the Introduction, Methods (Materials, Experimental), Results, and Discussion/Conclusion (IMRaD) format. Each section of the paper serves a distinct purpose.

Introduction: state of knowledge that led to hypothesis
Methods: procedures used to test hypothesis
Results: findings obtained by the experiments
Discussion: summary of decisive results and tentative conclusions

Because each section has a different purpose for the whole paper, it is common that the verb tense is different within each section and between sections.

In the introduction, you must create context for the hypothesis or problem you are trying to solve by describing the current state of knowledge and background information. You do this by citing the relevant literature. When citing the literature, you should use the past tense and the present tense. Use the past tense to describe what was done in the research. Use the present tense to describe what was found in the research.

For example,
“Smith and Jones studied the stability of nitrogen-substituted aziridines. They found that these small nitrogen containing heterocycles are acid sensitive and open under acidic conditions.”

I used past tense to describe what they did in the study, but present tense when describing their results. The results are discussed in the present tense because they touch the present, that is, they remain true in the present (unless proved otherwise) and are current knowledge. Examples of this include characteristics, properties, and applications of materials; calculations with a specific tool and parameters; and techniques that improve a process.

In the last part of the introduction, the past, present, and even future, tenses can be used together.

“Here, we studied nitrogen-substituted aziridines to screen how nitrogen substitution changes the stability of the heterocycle under acidic conditions which will broaden its applications as an amine synthon.”

Although this section may not be the most interesting to write, it is perhaps the easiest. Simply use the past tense in this section to describe what you did. All experiments for the paper were performed in the past. You or your colleagues did these experiments. Work may continue on this project with follow-up experiments, but for this paper, now, the experiments are finished. If a reviewer asks you to include more experimentation in the paper, you will still present it in the past tense in the final draft.

Remember, the procedures used to test your stated hypothesis or problem are always in the past relative to reporting and discussing the results.

“The reaction mixture was stirred at 100 °C for 10 h.” Simple past tense for the win!

The results section can use more than one tense, which often leads to confusion about what tense is most appropriate in specific situations.

Typically, figures and tables are referred to in the present tense:

“Figure 1 shows…”
“Table 1 contains the conditions screened…”

Although this may seem odd because the results were obtained in the past, your published paper is always read in the present. Even if the experiments were faulty and another paper shows that the results were wrong, or there is a retraction or correction, the figures in this iteration of the paper will always show these results.

However, it gets complicated when the results within the table or figure are discussed. You can choose either the present tense or the past tense.

“Figure 1 shows that as the reaction temperature decreased the reaction rate decreased.”

The past tense in the above sentence is correct. But the following can also be correct.

“Figure 1 shows that as the reaction temperature decreases the reaction rate decreases.”

So which one should you choose? Both are correct, but I prefer the present tense in this case. I try to keep in mind that under these specific conditions, anyone trying to repeat this experiment should expect the same results.

Thus, the result —obtained in the past by experimentation—touches and continues into the present (repeatable system or characteristic of the system) and is most appropriately discussed in the present tense. The is a specific tense for these types of situations called the progressive tense, but it isn’t needed here. For a more in-depth discussion of the progressive tenses see CMOS.

Here's another example, DFT calculations of this system, with this method will always give the same result.  

Sometimes the discussion section is separate from the results, or it may be included within the results section. Either way, I think it makes the most sense for this material to be in the present tense. Think of these questions when writing the discussion.

How does the system act when probed this way?

What are the properties of the system (catalyst, molecule)?

• What are your results?
  
• What do the results mean?
• What is their impact?
  
• 
  

What if I use the past tense here?

• What were your results?
• What did the results mean?
• What was their impact?
  
• 
  

The past tense in the questions above give the sense that the knowledge you gained isn’t current. It’s already past. If the knowledge isn’t current then your audience wonder why they should care about your conclusions.
Remember that your conclusions and interpretations of the data are new. Put them in the present tense for the most powerful impact. For example,
“We ascribe the slower reaction rate to a lack of sufficient energy in the system.”

If the sentence is “We ascribed the slower reaction rate…”, a reader might ask, “So how did you fix it?”

As in the Introduction, Results, and Discussion, the conclusion section also needs to be written in more than one tense.

Use the past tense to summarize the study. “We studied the effects of substitution on aziridine stability.”

Use the present tense to summarize the results. “Substitution of the aziridine nitrogen changes its stability.”
“Here, we show…”

• Materials have these properties and characteristics
• The reaction behaves this way under these conditions
• Our system solves this problem
  

Use the future tense to describe the results’ impact or meaning. “Our findings will broaden the use of aziridines as amine synthons.”

Scientific writing is challenging, even for a seasoned academic. When writing your research paper, remember what the intent of each sentence is and you’ll be able to easily chose the best verb tense.

Do you have trouble with verb tenses in scientific writing? Drop me a message on LinkedIn and we can chat about it.

If you look up jargon under any style guide, you’ll either see the recommendation to avoid its use altogether or to use it with caution. Here you’ll find out why most writing authorities adamantly reject its use.

Jargon is technical vocabulary, or an informal idiom, that is field specific, meaning it is easily understood by people within that particular field. According to the Council of Science Editors Scientific Style and Format, jargon can be

• Shortened forms of words from conversation that may enter formal communication
  • lab for laboratory
• Ignored verb-object relations
  • “We stocked trout in the stream” instead of “We stocked the stream with trout”
• Nouns that are not used with formal meaning
  • “No pathology was found…” instead of “No abnormalities were found…”
• Euphemisms
  • “The patient expired” instead of “The patient died”

In STEM fields, jargon can appear often in informal conversation (like research-group meetings). At times, it can be quite useful because it relates very specific and precise information to those “in the know”. For example, when I was a graduate student, members of my research group often used the nouns TLC and NMR as verbs.

“I TLC’d the reaction to find out when it was finished.” or
“After workup, I NMR’d the crude mixture.”

These terms may have sounded odd to researchers outside of our group, but we knew exactly what was meant by TLC’d and NMR’d. Here’s what it could have been if jargon wasn’t used.

“I used thin-layer chromatography to find out when the reaction was finished.” and
“After work up, I performed a nuclear magnetic resonance experiment on the crude mixture.”

Notice how the spelled-out examples are more formal and longer: neither of which are necessary for conversation between peers.

In the above example, the student’s use of TLC and NMR as verbs wasn’t a problem in the informal discussion within a group meeting. As noted in the Chicago Manuel of Style, English nouns are commonly used as verbs and often appear as jargon first. Our research advisor was very strict in removing this jargon from research papers and presentations.

Why?

Because jargon is precise to only some audiences, specifically audiences within your own field. Thus, jargon can limit the reach of your message!

Jargon may exclude

• Researchers outside or new to the field
• Multilingual authors
• General audience

If you spell out the abbreviations in the above examples, they become problematic.

“I thin-layer chromatographied the reaction to find out when it was finished.”
“After workup, I nuclear magnetic resonanced the crude mixture.”

Neither of these uses would make sense to someone outside the field, and they could cause confusion for a multilingual scientist who knows what NMR and TLC are but isn’t familiar with these terms being used as verbs.
Furthermore, jargon can mean different things to different audiences.

For example, the term turnover number “is defined as the maximum number of molecules of substrate that an enzyme can convert to product per catalytic site per unit time” in enzymology. But in organometallic chemistry, the turnover number is the number of moles of substrate that a mole of catalyst can convert to product. Notice that the number of catalytic sites and time are not accounted for in the organometallic chemistry definition.

Here’s an example from Einsohn and Schwartz’s The Copyeditor’s Handbook: “Steep-learning curve” means learning easy information at a fast rate to some or learning difficult information (think walking up a hill) at a slow rate to others.

Ultimately, jargon can confuse and limit your audience. It makes your reader work harder to understand the message. In fact, the use of jargon in a paper title or abstract may reduce the number of the paper’s citations.

In a 2021 article, Martínez and Mammola found a significant negative relationship between the use of jargon in the title and abstract of 21,486 cave research articles and the number of citations the articles received. This finding likely applies to other fields.

Also, Jargon was found to disrupt fluency and to disengage the audience in a 2020 study in the Journal of language and Social Psychology. Here, study participants reported lower scientific interest in the study and perceived understanding of the topic.

Based on what I describe above, it is usually best to avoid jargon. Science and medical communication are already complex, and so it should be the writer’s goal to make the text as clear as possible, especially for a general audience.

But there are proponents of jargon use in STEM writing. Trevor Quirk, in “Writers should not fear jargon” an opinion piece for Nature, states that removing jargon eliminates important information. He gives the example of “photometry” and “spectroscopy”. Both are “methods of studying light”, but they are two distinct techniques.

Thus, in highly technical papers intended for a specific audience, jargon may have a place, but you must use jargon with care.

If you choose to use jargon, use it judiciously.  
Do you use jargon in your scientific writing? Drop a comment.

If you don’t know how to start writing your research paper, you are not alone. According to the Berkeley Student learning Center Before You Start Writing That Paper guide, “all writers face the dilemma of looking at a blank computer screen….” Staring at a blank page can be daunting even when all the data is analyzed and the outcomes of the research are known. Google search “writers’ block” or “start writing”, and you’ll find thousands and thousands of hits about cures and strategies to overcome this common challenge.

So, what is the answer to writers’ block in STEM writing? Storyboards! Here, I describe how to use graphics (figures, tables, schemes) to storyboard for your research paper.

As defined by the Nashville Film Institute, storyboards are graphical representations of a story’s step-by-step progress. Storyboards have been in use since the 1930s in the film industry. As described, storyboards help

• organize thoughts
  
• share ideas
• identify problems
  
• improve planning

Finally, breaking the story into sections simplifies working out the details of that section.
Storyboarding for STEM research is not new. Check out this YouTube video on three different text methods to storyboard for science writing from the University of Guelph’s Writing in the Sciences (WITS) project. According to WITS, science writing storyboards are specifically used to

• identify scenes (paragraphs)
  
• identify the message of each scene
• ensure a logical flow of scenes
  

Based on my experience, research paper graphics are great storyboards for research papers. Below you will learn how to use graphics to storyboard for your next research paper!

When I was in graduate school and about to write my first paper, my research advisor gave me this advice, “Make the graphics first.”
If you haven’t already done so, you need to compile and analyze the data from your research. Overall, graphics should be concise, meaningful, and easy for your audience to understand.
Graphics include

• Tables
  
• Schemes
• Figures
• Photographs
  
• Charts and graphs

As extensively described in The Craft of Research by Booth, Colomb and Williams, the main claims of a research project must be supported by evidence, which lead to subclaims that, in turn, also must be supported by evidence. Thus, your graphics should clearly present the data to either support or reject the research hypothesis. Try to visualize the data in different formats; it may take time to find the best visual presentation, but as stated by Booth, Colomb and Williams, displaying the data in multiple ways may help elucidate relationships that weren’t first apparent.

Generating the graphics doesn’t have to be a formidable challenge, it may be straightforward or even fun. Because my project was a synthesis, my schemes depicted the path from starting materials to products, with intermediates along the way. But for other papers, I needed to analyze data and use charts and graphs to understand the information and present it well.

While you make the graphics, mentally describe them—or take notes. This step is like making an outline: the graphic is the heading and each heading should have multiple points of discussion. By the time you finish the graphics, you should be able to communicate the type of data presented by the figure, how the data was collected, how the data could be interpreted, and how it is relevant to the main research claim. This is the message (points) of the storyboard (outline).

After organizing the research outcomes into clear and concise graphics, the graphics must be arranged to ensure a logical flow of the information, that is, a compelling story. By arranging and rearranging the order of the graphics—before any text is written—you can determine how the graphics are related and how to transition from one graphic to the next. Take time with this step. You may discover that a graphic doesn’t contribute to the current story but should still be reported in the supplementary information. Most importantly, it should be clear if more evidence is needed to support your claim or if there is missing information that needs to be addressed.

Now it’s time to fill in the details. Once the graphics are in a logical order, start writing about the graphic using the points you already compiled. What type of data was collected for the graphic and why? What does the graphic show? Does it support or reject the claim? Did the data in this graphic lead to more questions that substantiated collecting more data? And so on.

Because the order of the graphics has been extensively explored to enhance logic and flow, transitioning from one to the other should be easy.

Finally, the story that has unfolded from your data-derived visuals will determine what is included in the introduction and concluding sections.

Do you know someone who could benefit from this approach to research paper drafting? Share my blog on LinkedIn.