While personal narratives and past events are written in the past tense, academic analysis of literature and artworks conventionally uses the literary present tense.
In English grammar, nouns and verbs often work in reverse: plural nouns typically get an 's' (dogs), while present-tense singular verbs also get an 's' (runs).
A colon should never directly follow a verb like 'are' or 'includes'—in standard English, the clause appearing before a colon must always stand alone as a complete sentence.
When following verbs of demand or recommendation such as 'insist' or 'propose', the English subjunctive freezes the following verb into its uninflected base form, which is why 'I recommend that she go' is correct rather than 'she goes'.
