Well, I'm writing a personal statement (so the style is semi-formal) and not sure what tenses should I use, since English is not my native language. I want to say that I've read one IT-security related magazine and it helped my to get solid basics of web sites security. I think it should be: By reading an IT security related magazine, I have gained a good understanding of Web security basics. Is it correct? Yeah, this is very lame, but I just want to be sure...