Verb tenses in academic writing
Tenses in reported speech
- When you use a reporting verb in the past tense you must change the verb tense used by the other person:
Present simple - past simple (The report found that 90% of participants agreed with…)
Present perfect - past perfect (…found that 27% of the patients had responded favourably…)
Past simple - past simple or past perfect (…found that most students planned / had planned their semesters…)
Can - could; will - would, may - might
To do
- Reported speech (with quiz) (British Council)
More info
- Tense changes when using reported speech (edufind.com)