Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language: a handbook for Supervisors

Application: repor ting verbs
Ask your student to look at the list of reporting verbs and decide
whether they are examples of statement, judgment, opinion, sugges-
tion, or disagreement type verbs.
Some of these verbs are quite similar in how they may be classified. It
is useful, however, to consider differences between them as not all of these
verbs have the same meaning.
point out
argue
claim
state
doubt
propose
observe
identify
report
agree (with)
add
describe
say
explain
present
indicate
assert
believe
question
dispute
maintain
support
think
challenge
dismiss
recommend
say
urge
suggest disagree 
(with)
claim
assert
affirm

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Students often ask what tense they should use in their literature review.
Reporting verbs in a literature review are often in the simple present, the simple
past or the present perfect. Table 7.3 shows examples of this.
Some suggestions for choices of tense and reasons for their use are shown in
Table 7.4.
Writing the background chapters
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Table 7.3 Typical tenses used in the literature review
Tense
Example
simple present
Brown (1989) shows that
simple past
Brown (1989) showed that
present perfect
Research has shown that
Table 7.4 Choices of tense and reasons for their use
Choice of tense
Reason
present simple
a generalization is being made
a reference is being made to the state of current knowledge
previous findings are being presented/are accepted as facts
simple past
a reference is being made to a single study
a specific piece of research and its findings are being
referred to
present perfect
a general area of investigation or inquiry is being
referred to
a general statement is made about previous research