Verb Tense Consistency
What is verb tense?
A verb's tense tells you when the action is taking place. The three simple ones are past, present, and future, as in "Lennie laughed, Lennie laughs, and Lennie will laugh." The three slightly-more-complicated tenses are past perfect, present perfect, and future perfect, as in "Lennie had laughed, Lennie has laughed, and Lennie will have laughed." Then there are progressive tenses and...well... let's not dwell on that. The point is that the tense tells you when the verb happened, happens, or will happen.
What did I probably mess up?
This is one of the most common errors in student writing. You start off in one verb tense, say present, and then randomly switch to another, usually past. It looks kind of like this:
Lennie is the strongest man on the ranch. When he and George first arrive, everyone is suspicious of them because Lennie won't talk, but then Lennie started working and everyone liked him. He worked harder than everyone else, and even made some of the guys jealous.
See how the first few verbs are all present (is, arrive, won't) and then they randomly switch to past (started, liked, worked, made)? That kind of switch is bad, and looks amateurish.
Lennie is the strongest man on the ranch. When he and George first arrive, everyone is suspicious of them because Lennie won't talk, but then Lennie started working and everyone liked him. He worked harder than everyone else, and even made some of the guys jealous.
See how the first few verbs are all present (is, arrive, won't) and then they randomly switch to past (started, liked, worked, made)? That kind of switch is bad, and looks amateurish.
Why did I do it?
We all do it, particularly when we get caught up in the story we are telling. It's perfectly common. It's one of the first thing an experienced writer looks out for when revising: "OK. Did my verb tenses get away from me? Let's fix that."
How do I fix it?
Read over your essay. Decide which tense most of the essay is in. Then go back and change the aberrant verbs so that everything lines up.
Can I ever use more than one tense in an essay?
Of course! You just have to do it on purpose. Maybe you are writing in present tense, but you need to refer to something that happened before the stuff you are writing about; use past tense for that part. Maybe you are writing the main essay in past tense, but you want to mention something that happened before the stuff you are writing about. That's the time to pull out your past perfect (Lennie had laughed).
It's all about control and intent.
It's all about control and intent.