Past vs. present tense: too much of a stickler?

[Caracal]

The 'historic present' was even a thing in Latin.  It is fine.

Well, yes, if the students write their papers in Latin. Or even Italian. But my students tend to write their papers in English (although I give them the option to write in Spanish or Portuguese when I teach Latin American history).

As others have said, I often use the present for class discussions. But in written work, historians use the past tense. I won't fail a student--or perhaps even mark a student lower--for using the present tense in a paper, but it is part of becoming literate in English usage. In the same way an Anglophone learning Italian should know how to use the passato remoto and passato prossimo correctly; it is not strictly a question of grammar but of usage.

Yeah, communication and language involves lots of rules that are basically arbitrary and dependent on context. Paying attention to these ruleis important in all kinds of contexts outside of academia.

[mleok]

The 'historic present' was even a thing in Latin.  It is fine.

Nobody is arguing that the use of the 'historic present' is wrong, but the OP is forcing their students to use it, which seems questionable.

[ciao_yall]

Isn't that what we do? Teach students the professional conventions of our field?

I made little notes for few students that noted their incorrect use of the words peaked/piqued and cord/chord. I didn't take points off but if I'm not going to tell them now, who will tell them and when?

[Parasaurolophus]

Isn't that what we do? Teach students the professional conventions of our field?

Sometimes? I dunno about you, but I have to do a lot triage in my teaching...

[mleok]

Isn't that what we do? Teach students the professional conventions of our field?

I guess it would depend on whether this is a general education class or an upper-division class. I think forcing the specific and idiosyncratic conventions of a field in a general education class would be wildly inappropriate.

[downer]

Maybe in some fields there are very specific conventions, but my impression is that in most fields, there is a variety of practices, and it is rare for an idiosyncratic convention to be universal within a field. So insisting on one convention rather than educating students about the range of conventions would not serve students well, even in upper level undergrad or grad student classes.

[mleok]

Maybe in some fields there are very specific conventions, but my impression is that in most fields, there is a variety of practices, and it is rare for an idiosyncratic convention to be universal within a field. So insisting on one convention rather than educating students about the range of conventions would not serve students well, even in upper level undergrad or grad student classes.

Well, if there isn't a convention in the field, then all the more reason not to be pedantic about it even in an upper-division class. It's one thing if the paper is going to have my name on it, but I'm not going to penalize a student for using a style I don't personally prefer if it is otherwise acceptable in my field.

[mahagonny]

I'm not sure exactly what our disciplinary conventions are, but I usually reserve the present tense for living authors and the past for the deaders.

Yes, I do the same.

If you're still quoting them though (the deaders) they are as if still walking and breathing among us. Immortal.  Their ideas have, if anything, extra standing.
It's uplifting to think that way, and also true, but I don't know if it would be correct usage. I'd do it your way, but not mind if someone used present tense.

Aside: sports announcers now use future tense for something that just happened. 'Rodriguez will steal second on the wild pitch.' What does this accomplish? Maybe it makes the TV watching more vivid.

[Caracal]

Maybe in some fields there are very specific conventions, but my impression is that in most fields, there is a variety of practices, and it is rare for an idiosyncratic convention to be universal within a field. So insisting on one convention rather than educating students about the range of conventions would not serve students well, even in upper level undergrad or grad student classes.

I doubt there are any fields that don't have specific conventions. It might not be about tense, but it's about something. There are certain conventions you are supposed to follow in doing a math proof. Scientific papers have a structure they need to follow. These things are arbitrary to some extent, but that doesn't mean they are pointless. It's useful to know where the methods section, or the literature review section is going to be. These structures can also make things easier for writers. It presumably saves a lot of time if you don't have to worry about where to put different elements of a scientific paper and nobody has to spend any time deciding what tense to write their article in. You can usually find examples where people don't follow the rules, but that usually serves a very specific purpose. If you write a paragraph of a history book in present tense, you are indicating something by your departure from the normal rules.

All of us can probably think of people we know who confuse personal preferences and rules. I've had colleagues complain to me about some stylistic  "error" underarms mak eand have thought "I do that all the time, nobody has ever flagged it, it has appeared in my published work and in other people's published work-It's not a real rule." But that's not what we are talking about here. Present tense in lit writing or past tense in historical writing are accepted conventions.

Of course, how much to worry about these kinds of things is a different question and the one the OP was actually asking.

[downer]

Different journals or university presses will have policies for all sorts of ways of setting things out. But if a a policy is not rationally required, and is just a conventional choice, I expect that different people will go different ways. I can't think of any convention that is universally accepted by all journals in a field, though I'd be interested to hear examples.

[Caracal]

Different journals or university presses will have policies for all sorts of ways of setting things out. But if a a policy is not rationally required, and is just a conventional choice, I expect that different people will go different ways. I can't think of any convention that is universally accepted by all journals in a field, though I'd be interested to hear examples.

Some rules can vary, but many are pretty universal across fields. No journal in history is going to print an article using parenthetical citations. I'm assuming it isn't going to work in your biology paper to just leave out the lit review section.

[Parasaurolophus]

Different journals or university presses will have policies for all sorts of ways of setting things out. But if a a policy is not rationally required, and is just a conventional choice, I expect that different people will go different ways. I can't think of any convention that is universally accepted by all journals in a field, though I'd be interested to hear examples.

Citing one's sources?

Writing one's own work (i.e. not plagiarizing)?

Not re-publishing work published elsewhere?

[downer]

Different journals or university presses will have policies for all sorts of ways of setting things out. But if a a policy is not rationally required, and is just a conventional choice, I expect that different people will go different ways. I can't think of any convention that is universally accepted by all journals in a field, though I'd be interested to hear examples.

Citing one's sources?

Writing one's own work (i.e. not plagiarizing)?

Not re-publishing work published elsewhere?

Right, but those are not discipline-specific conventions.

I was thinking more about things like citation formats.

[jerseyjay]

Different journals or university presses will have policies for all sorts of ways of setting things out. But if a a policy is not rationally required, and is just a conventional choice, I expect that different people will go different ways. I can't think of any convention that is universally accepted by all journals in a field, though I'd be interested to hear examples.

Citing one's sources?

Writing one's own work (i.e. not plagiarizing)?

Not re-publishing work published elsewhere?

These are all principles in most, if not all, academic disciplines. How they are applied, however, is often different even within the same discipline.

For example, citing sources? I have seen some books by really good and recognized historians that do not have any footnotes or citations, and instead just have a bibliographic essay at the end. These are usually in books aimed at undergraduates or non-historians (such as published by Hill and Wang). Then there are books that only cite primary sources. And then there are some journals (especially the American Historical Review) that cite anything that could conceivably be cited. I have received readers' reports asking for more footnotes, and readers reports requesting the footnotes be trimmed--for the same article. My point is, what "cite your sources" means varies within the same discipline.

[Puget]

Different journals or university presses will have policies for all sorts of ways of setting things out. But if a a policy is not rationally required, and is just a conventional choice, I expect that different people will go different ways. I can't think of any convention that is universally accepted by all journals in a field, though I'd be interested to hear examples.

Citing one's sources?

Writing one's own work (i.e. not plagiarizing)?

Not re-publishing work published elsewhere?

Right, but those are not discipline-specific conventions.

I was thinking more about things like citation formats.

Every US-based psychology journal I know of follows the APA style guide.