In the methods section one would use past tense due to what they have done was in the past. It has been debated whether one should use active or passive voice. The scientific journal Nature states ...

Some languages like Mandarin Chinese don’t have verb tenses but express time in different ways. When writing, it’s important to use the correct form of a verb and to use it consistently.

For instance, Russian- and English-speaking participants struggled ... identify the underlying causes of difficulties with using verb tenses. This means that speech therapists and ...