paper writing

[sinisterpanda]

Were you taught to write a paper in past tense or present tense?

[ism]

Depends on the type of paper and the context, but the main rule is consistency. Then there's present tense for universal truths, and...

For literary essays, it's important to use the "literary present" when talking about events in a story or an author's continuing thesis. Events in a story are things like "At the beginning of the third chapter, Bob whispers to the cat." The author's life is described in the past ("She was born in 1918"), but an author's works endure time and are thus in the present ("In chapter 6, she suggests that art is subjective").

History's a little tricky since you may need to use the present tense for a narrative style, although events have occured.

Research papers depend on what style you're following. APA is in past or present perfect, and MLA is generally present tense.

[sinisterpanda]

okay so my english teacher, for literature class, told us that we need to write in past tense when referring to literary text. NOT ONLY THAT though, and i don't know if this is just me, but she wants us to put the punctuation inside of the quotation marks when we quote something. She changes my word choices when I purposefully chose that word. OH MY GOD I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!! This is going against EVERYTHING i have EVER learned, and EVERYTHING everyone is telling me now! Can I report her? I mean, I want and NEEED a goood grade!

[Mr.Lum]

Your teacher doesn't know what shes talking about. Smack her.

[kpih]

Your teacher doesn't know what shes talking about. Smack her.

I would hate to be your teacher, ha ha. (any of my students smacked me, I punch back, and that is that, kissing my career goodbye...)

[sinisterpanda]

I would hate to be your teacher, ha ha. (any of my students smacked me, I punch back, and that is that, kissing my career goodbye...)

OH MY GOD YOU"RE A GENIUS!!! I'll taunt her into hitting me and then sue her for racism!

[Kennyb]

Well why don't you just do your work under the Harvard system when it come to quoting?

From what I was taught in literature, you should be writing it in a third person's view and in past tense. I don't think it makes any difference if you put punctuation inside the quotation mark or not - it's whether it reads well.

[nola]

That makes it simple but it might sound stiff. Hmm...both past and present tenses. I'll go with ism on this.

I use alot of gerunds (-ing words) which is bad. They didn't teach us not to use gerunds in the 70s or I probably just spaced out.

[lethal]

I thought the punctuation was supposed to go inside the quotation marks. That's how I've always learned it.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

The American rule that punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks leads to ambiguity. Obvious example sentence:

Did Smith really intend to say "I met him before?"

We can't tell whether the questioner is asking if Smith intended to made the statement "I met him before" or asked the question "Did I meet him before?" if we insist on some absolute rule, instead of putting the punctuation where it actually makes sense for the sentence. Language prescriptivists are bad enough running around creating "rules" about language that don't work; they even try to enforce arbitrary conventions about punctuation which don't even make sense.

[>:^|]

The American rule that punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks leads to ambiguity.

The rule is not that punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks. For the most part, punctuation is enclosed within quotes. However, there are exceptions to the rule, including some with regard to question marks and exclamation marks.