Special purposes of the present tense. When writing about action in literary works, use the present tense.

General truths or scientific facts should be written in the present tense, even when the predicate in the main clause is in the past tense.

In general, when you are quoting, summarizing, or paraphrasing a work, use the present tense.

But when using APA (American Psychological Association) style, report the results of your experiments or another researcher’s work in the past tense (wrote, noted) or the present perfect (has discovered). (For more on APA style, see Chapter 50.)