Academic style guide
27 Modifying and intensifying language
Cautious language/ evaluating statements/ showing confidence
In any kind of academic writing it is necessary to make decisions about your stance to a particular subject, or the strengths of claims you are making. It is unlikely that the evidence you present will be conclusive enough for you to state that something will definitely happen. At the same time, you need be careful about making sweeping statements which do not consider exceptions. This is why academic writing often calls for a cautious style. These rules are especially important when commenting on data, discussing implications or drawing conclusions from findings.
There are various ways in which caution can be expressed. This includes appropriate modal verbs (e.g. may, might, could), other lexical verbs (e.g. suggest, appear), tentative cognition verbs (e.g. believe, think, consider), adverbs (e.g. frequently, usually), adjectives (e.g. possible, likely) and other lexical items (e.g. to our knowledge).
You can show your attitude to the viewpoints, sources of evidence that you have presented. The word that you choose in these two examples will alter the strength of the claim you are making about the relationship.
Caution in verbs
When referring to sources, the verb used indicates the degree of caution.
Compare:
Tilic (2004) states that the cost of living …
Tilic (2004) suggests that the cost of living …
Compare:
Research proves that we possess at least four forms of memory (Martin et al., 2007, p.304).
Research suggests that we possess at least four forms of memory (Martin et al., 2007, p.304).
Compare:
Nowadays Business studies have more importance.
Nowadays Business studies appear to have more importance.
Other verbs which imply tentative or cautious findings are:
think/ consider/ hypothesize/ believe/ claim/ presume
You can evaluate your statements and show your attitude in either a positive or a negative way.
Compare:
Poor driving conditions lead to accidents.
Poor driving conditions frequently lead to accidents.
You can modify your claims using the following words and phrases:
| Adjectives |
e.g. important, misguided, inaccurate, incorrect, remarkable, surprising Example: Intelligence testing has a long and controversial history. |
| Adverbs |
e.g. accurately, unfortunately, inappropriately Example: Such drugs have been inappropriately prescribed and… |
| Nouns |
e.g. difficulty, problem, crisis, shortcoming, assumption Example: The difficulty lay in the fact … |
Showing confidence
You can show your degree of confidence in your claim by:
- Showing caution in your claim through the use of hedges such as ‘probable’, ‘might’, ‘may’, ‘possibly’
- Showing confidence in your claim by using boosters such as ‘definite’, ‘will’, ‘must’, ‘obviously’, ‘clearly’.
Example: It is clear that schools need to introduce sport at a young age. (shows confidence)
Although your evidence may strongly support your argument, in academic writing the sentence may be expressed more cautiously with the use of a modal word such as ‘may’.
You can use various verbs, adjectives or adverbs to show your degree of confidence as shown below:
| Verbs | e.g. will, may, might, could |
| Adverbs | e.g. certainly, definitely, probably, perhaps, obviously |
| Adjectives | e.g. certain, definite, probable, possible |
| Signalling phrases | e.g. it may be possible…, it could be …, there is chance that,,,. In general … |
Probability
There are many ways of expressing probability in written academic English. Notice how the phrases below weaken in strength.
|
stronger
weaker |
|
sleeping 7-9 hours each day will result in better academic performance |
Distance
Distance is another way of removing yourself from a strong claim. Compare the following.
- The company has benefitted from …
- The factory seems to have benefitted from …
- The factory appears to have benefitted from …
- It is said that the factory seems to have benefited from …
Swales and Feak (2013, p.127) point to an alternative strategy to distance yourself from the data by showing in some way that it is “soft”. Examples:
- According to this preliminary study …
- In the view of some experts …
- Even though the data is limited, some research suggests …
A cautious style is necessary in many areas of academic writing to avoid making statements that can be easily contradicted:
- Demand for healthcare usually exceeds supply.
- Most students find writing exams difficult.
- House prices tend to fall as societies get poorer.
Areas where caution is particularly important include:
a) Presenting a hypothesis that needs to be tested (e.g. in the introduction).
b) Discussing the results of a study, which may not be conclusive.
c) Commenting on the work of other writers.
d) Making predictions (Normally may or might are used).
One way to express caution is to use modifiers: fairly, rather, or quite before an adjective:
- A fairly accurate summary
- A rather inconvenient location
- Quite a significant discovery
Activity for modifying and intensifying language
More guidelines on Cautious language can be found in the Academic Phrasebank.