Choosing and keeping tenses · Grade 6
A good piece of writing chooses a tense and keeps to it. A story about yesterday stays in the past; a description of what happens every day stays in the present. Change the tense only when the time you are writing about changes: I live in Cape Town now, but I lived in Durban when I was small.
Key facts
- Choose the tense for the time: past for finished events (went), present for habits and facts (go), future for later (will go).
- Keep every verb in that tense: Yesterday I went to the park and played football. (not play).
- Time words are clues: yesterday, last week, in 1969 (past); every day, usually (present); tomorrow (future).
- Change tense only with a change of time: She is tired today because she worked late yesterday.
- When you check your work, find every verb and ask: does it match the time?