Tense Consistency Discussion
For this discussion, tell a short family story or something that happened to you. As you write and proofread, make sure all your verbs are correct, and the tenses are consistent.
In this unit, we have reviewed the role of verbs in sentences and the importance of maintaining tense consistency to create sentence clarity. Now that you know more about avoiding unnecessary tense shifts, you can use those guidelines more confidently to express your ideas in English.
Instructions:
For this discussion, tell a short family story or something that happened to you. You likely have several family stories to choose from, but pick the one that you find most interesting to write about. Use as many details as you can in the telling. As you write and proofread, make sure all your verbs are correct, and the tenses are consistent.
Share your answers and see what kind of stories your classmates selected. Then, reply to your classmates with feedback or suggestions about their tense consistency.
Example:
Here is a short family story that I might share in the forum:
Yesterday I walked down the street and I saw a huge dog. The dog was walking all by itself and I wondered where its owner was. Suddenly the dog starts running towards me at full speed. It's running so fast that I don't have time to think, so I jump behind a mailbox and watched it run right past me.
Notice how, in telling my story, the verbs in the first two sentences are in past tense. The third sentence shifts into present tense. The fourth sentence starts out in present tense and then shifts to past tense. This kind of unnecessary tense shifting can be confusing to the reader, so if you notice these unnecessary shifts, please include them in your feedback.
Prompt source: Suzie Baker, https://pressbooks.nscc.ca/profcommunication/chapter/unit-17/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License.
Sample story source: Gila Berryman, https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/wordshavelives/2015/04/19/verb-tense-consistency/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.