Verb tense in class summaries

[Ken]

Krishna and Guofeng asked for a native English speaker's reasons for
using present tense versus past tense in the class summaries. I think
use of present tense provides more "immediacy". It's like the writer
is watching a movie of the class and describing what is happening,
rather than enumerating past events. It makes the next sentence a
little less predictable.

In the example below, the present tense provides a little more drama:
Will Ken finish the presentation? Will Corby rephrase his question to
get it through Ken's thick skull? Will Dr. Gupta dismiss the whole
discussion as "not compelling"? Compare:

"Ken drones on about the DFT. Next he looks confused as Corby asks
about the DCT. Finally, Dr. Gupta suggests we take the discussion off
line and move on to another topic."

"Ken droned on about the DFT. Then he looked confused as Corby asked
about the DCT. Finally, Dr. Gupta suggested we take the discussion off
line and move on to another topic."

On the other hand the problem with using the present tense is that it
is easy to slip into the past tense, since the events happened in the
past.

I would be interested in learning if there is such a choice or
distinction in Krishna or Guofeng's native language.

[Ken]

In fact, this use of present tense is called the "historical present".
A good description is at http://www.txstate.edu/slac/writing/documentation/present_tense.html.
For what it's worth, I recommend Strunk and White's _The Elements of
Style_ as a guide to effective writing.

In terms of correctness of the class summary I suppose it would be
better to use the past tense, especially considering that we are
describing an event for the historical record. Of course Dr. Gupta
also is looking for more discussion and exploration in the summary,
but that's a separate issue. :-)

At the same time, in my view the goal of communication is to get your
intended meaning into the consciousness of the listener. Following
"the rules" is an aid to understanding, but the bottom line is to do
whatever it takes to impart your meaning.

I think this goal is critical in our class presentations as well as
the summaries. In the example of my DFT presentation, I could have
described it better by taking an example time-domain equation and
working through the DFT transform frequency by frequency. Preparing a
presentation is a race against time. First we must learn the topic
ourselves, internalize and rearrange it in our own minds, and then
explain it clearly to the listener. Unfortunately, I'm usually in the
"internalize and rearrange" stage when I have to make the
presentation. :-( This class has been great practical experience in
working through this problem.

[Guofeng (Griffin) Deng]

I didn't expect this amount of effort from Ken when I ask him the question. That is impressive and really helpful. Thanks Ken.

 

I agree with Krishna that when coming to your native language, you always use intuition rather than grammar or rules, unless you think about it really seriously. I guess in Chinese, past tense is more appropriate for the situation, although not sure. If you think of the class as a movie and the note taker is narrating the story, present tense is the best chioce. It is kind of similar to what Ken said.

Oh God, English is hard. :>

[Corby]

To me it just feels natural when writing the summaries to write in past tense (active not passive voice) about what happened.  To me it should be more like a newspaper article rather than a narrative story.  And although newspapers tend to write more in passive voice, I think it's more appropriate to write in active voice since it's less boring and since I was actually there and a part of it.

Just my 2¢.

-Corby