When is perfect not-so-perfect?
When it’s being misused as a verb tense.
I promised I’d share some common writing errors I’ve seen in my years as an ELA teacher, and here’s #1: Personal narratives written almost completely in past perfect verb tense.
I’m not the type of teacher to make my students memorize a chart of the 12 different verb tenses, but when improper usage affects the clarity and quality of their writing, I’ll step in every time.
There’s a difference between past and past perfect verb tense. Past perfect tense includes the words “has,” “have,” or “had.” When used properly, it shows relationships between events.
E.g., By the time I went grocery shopping, I had eaten all of the chips in the cupboard.
Notice that “had eaten” relates to “by the time,” connecting the two events in time (eating all the chips, going grocery shopping), a proper use of the past perfect tense.
If I simply want to tell you the chips are gone, I use regular old past tense for the verb.
E.g., I ate all of the chips in the cupboard.
The specific error I’ve noticed in student writing is that they use past perfect when past tense is all that’s needed. So a personal narrative essay ends up sounding like this:
I had gone to California on vacation with my family. We had driven to Disneyland first and stayed in a hotel in the park. Even though I had to share a room with my little brother, the hotel was awesome. When we had woken up the first morning we had breakfast at the hotel, then we had went to the park.
It reads awkwardly, right? Let’s check out the student’s revised version, using past tense verbs:
I went to California on vacation with my family. We drove to Disneyland first and stayed in a hotel in the park. Even though I had to share a room with my little brother, the hotel was awesome. When we woke up the first morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, then we went to the park.
Much better! So the next time you’re writing about events in the past, make sure you use the correct verb tense.
Happy writing, and be sure to visit StephB-Editing soon for the latest blog post!
Kommentare