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Silver keyboard Posted 9 years ago
Grammar

Present or past tense?

Hello everyone,

If I want to talk about my childhood or my life experience in the last in my statement of purpose, can I use present tense to tell my old life stories to make them compelling? Or I can only use past tense? I'm wondering if present tense in English has this kind of function as making the story compelling.

Thanks in advance

  

Top answer

I'm not sure that I can picture a situation where you could legitimately use the present tense when referring to things which have happened in the past. Could you give an example of what you were intending to write?

— David Hatton

  • I'm not sure that I can picture a situation where you could legitimately use the present tense when referring to things which have happened in the past.
  • Could you give an example of what you were intending to write?
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2 Answers
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I'm not sure that I can picture a situation where you could legitimately use the present tense when referring to things which have happened in the past. Could you give an example of what you were intending to write?

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silver keyboardcan I use present tense to tell my old life stories to make them compelling?

It doesn't seem appropriate in a statement of purpose.

That use of the present tense to tell a story from the past is more like a literary device. Maybe you should save that technique for when you write your novel.

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