Verb Tense and Agreement
Maintain consistent verb tense and subject-verb agreement in straightforward and interrupted sentence structures.
A lesson of English 9, in Language, Grammar, and Vocabulary, about 10 minutes.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to maintain consistent verb tense in your writing, apply subject-verb agreement correctly, and use literary present tense properly.
Verb Tense in Analytical Writing
Literary present tense: when analyzing literature, always use the present tense to describe what happens in the text.
❌ "Hamlet delayed his revenge."
✓ "Hamlet delays his revenge."
Why? The text exists in a kind of eternal present — it "happens" every time someone reads it. This is a convention of academic literary writing.
Tense Consistency
Once you establish a tense, maintain it throughout a paragraph (and usually throughout an essay).
Switching tenses confusingly:
❌ "Golding uses Simon's death to reveal the darkness in human nature. The boys had become animals. Golding suggests that civilization is fragile."
✓ "Golding uses Simon's death to reveal the darkness in human nature. The boys have become animals, their violence ritualized beyond reason. Golding suggests that civilization is fragile."
Subject-Verb Agreement
The subject and verb must agree in number (singular or plural).
Basic rule: singular subject → singular verb; plural subject → plural verb.
"The author writes about alienation." (singular author, singular writes)
"The authors write about alienation." (plural authors, plural write)
Tricky Agreement Cases
Phrases between subject and verb: ignore them.
"The theme of the three novels [is/are] alienation." — subject is "theme" (singular) → "is."
Compound subjects with "and": usually plural.
"Symbolism and imagery create meaning."
Compound subjects with "or/nor": verb agrees with the nearer subject.
"Neither the characters nor the narrator [is/are] reliable." — "narrator" is closest → "is."
Collective nouns (team, class, committee, audience): usually singular when acting as a unit.
"The class analyzes the poem together."
Indefinite pronouns: everyone, everyone, each, either, neither, someone, no one → singular.
"Everyone in the class has an opinion."
Common Errors
They/their with singular antecedent (now accepted):