What is verb tense?

Verb tense refers to when the action in a sentence takes place—whether it happened in the past, is happening in the present, or will happen in the future.

Most verbs take a past, present, or future tense. This means that the verb may change forms (add an ending, change spellings slightly, etc.) to reflect something that already happened, something that is currently happening or is an ongoing truth/reality, or something that will happen in the future.

Examples:

• Past tense: The researcher explained the unusual results.
  • In this example, "explained" is the past tense verb.
• Present tense: Poverty exists in the world even to this day.
  • In this example, "exists" is the present tense verb.
• Future tense: This study will challenge entrepreneurs in their views of the current state of the economy.
  • In this example, "will challenge" is the future tense verb. Notice that the future tense requires the helping verb, "will."

Also, remember that sometimes sentences might have multiple verb tenses.

Example:

The goal of this study is to determine how the Armed Forces reacted to threats of war in the past and to implement strategies that will encourage proactive movements rather than reactive movements in the future.

The first verb, "is," is in the present tense; the second verb, "reacted," is in the past tense; and the third verb, "will encourage," is in the future tense.

Verb tenses are important to keep consistent throughout your work so that your readers know when the actions you describe are happening. Verb tenses should always be consistent and make sense in the context of your writing.

Additional Resources:

• See more examples of verb tenses on the Writing Center’s website.
• Remember to align your subjects and verbs in number. View information about how subjects and verbs should agree in number in your sentences.
• Look through an interactive grammar module for some extra practice.
• What is a verb? 
• How can I make my verb tenses consistent?
• APA style also has guidelines on verb tenses for scholarly writing.

Further Questions?

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