Page 294 - English for Writing Research Papers

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A test bench (Fig. 1) was used in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the fl ame burner.

Steel plates were treated with an open-flame burner (Fig. 2).
The present simple is required when you describe a standard method, i.e. not one
you invented yourself for the specific purpose of the research that you are reporting

in your paper.

For example, if your paper is on ways to recycle paper, when describing methods
that have been reported in the literature, you will use the present . But then, when
you describe the various phases of your own system for recycling, then you would
probably use the past.

The present simple is also often used when you are presenting your procedure,
model, software, device etc. In this case the active form is often used.

Firstly, we defi ne x as an exogenous measure of the natural rate of longevity of people.
As in Chakraborty (2017), we assume that … The rule is thus given by the following
formula:
Our machine uses diesel … It has a 1000 hp engine …

The application requires 10 TB of space …

If you are in doubt, then look at your chosen journal and check what tense other
authors use in the Methods section.