Past tense/present tense: Found out Vs. Finding out

Question

Recently, one of my project mates corrected my writing, but I'm not sure if it has been corrected in the right way.

Would you be kind to read it and tell me if it's correct in the native English language?

I wrote the 1st one in my work, then my friend corrected it to 2nd:

1) I did some research of my own after finding out that he used to be an artist.

2) I did some research of my own after found out that he used to be a renowned artist.

Thank you guys.

Jesse Steele · Answer

after finding out

This is correct because "finding out" is an event (a noun, more or less) based on "finding" (with '-ing') being a gerund, or "verbal noun", and therefore doesn't need to be a verb with a subject.

But, "found" is not a gerund, so it behaves like any other verb; it needs a subject. In order to be correct, "after found out" would need to be something like "after I found out".

Both of these would be correct:

Unchanged:

1) I did some research of my own after finding out that he used to be an artist.

Corrected:

2) I did some research of my own after I found out that he used to be a

On your friend's correction:

Because you are describing events of the past already, you don't need to have every single verb everywhere to be in the past tense for us to know it happened in the past. Gerunds are allowed when narrating a past event.

Ram Pillai · Answer

The first sentence is correct.   I am not sure if your friend missed using an 'I', like ".....after I found that....."

Past tense/present tense: Found out Vs. Finding out

2 Answers

after finding out

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