Local Revision: Tense Usage

To further explore the verbs that I used in my project I have separated the words into three columns: past, present, and future.

Past	Present	Future
has (13)	are	will (3)
made	advances	-
caused (2)	pop	-
was	suffers	-
declared	feeding	-
resulted	sustain	-
started (2)	collide	-
sat	create	-
had	is (23)	-
wheeled	undergoing	-
smelled	sleeping (2)	-
scrubbed	cough	-
waited	push	-
completed	believes (2)	-
moved (2)	argues	-
allowed	squeeze	-
listened	responsive	-
deemed (2)	donate	-
drafted	findings	-
referenced (2)	deem	-
complied	move	-
examined	notifying	-
believed	seeks	-
asked	reverse	-
described	return	-
delayed	claims	-
pronounced	beating	-
called	breathing	-
took	scans	-
went	tests	-
appointed	indicates	-
issued	constitutes	-
released	pull	-
pursued	face	-
based	place	-
held	help (2)	-
argued	save	-
conducted	-	-
forced	-	-
brought forth	-	-
concocted	-	-

Lucarelli, Fosco "Past Present Future" 09-13-11 via Flickr
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic 

(1) In my draft I mainly switched back and forth between past and present tense. 

(2) The current usage of tense gives the piece a current or up-to-date modern tone. It helps the reader understand what is going on with that specific controversy at this specific time. In other words it gives the reader/audience context.

(3) In order to effectively explain the situation I have to go into detail about what happened in the past, and to do so I need to use past tense. However, I switch to present tense to describe the current situation, and I think that the switch from past to present flows fairly well. 

(4) I do implement present tense in my draft. I think that the present tense gives the audience information that is happening right now. The immediacy of present tense allows my story to get a sense of urgency. It gives the piece a time frame because the past and using past tense sometimes ages your work.