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The negative impact of S1 is reduced in S2 by:

• removing the words limitation and unfortunately . In reality, limitation is not a bad word to
use, but if you use it more than once or twice, the reader may go away thinking that your
work has more negative aspects than positive ones. If you have to refer to several limita-
tions, another solution to reduce the possible negative effect on the reader is to use syn-
onyms: shortfall, shortcoming, pitfall, drawback, disadvantage etc.

• introducing although and only – these adverbs qualify what you are saying. In this particu-
lar case, although immediately tells your reader that you are going to say something nega-
tive, but that something positive will immediately follow. Only implies a limited number of
cases, thus it lessens the level of seriousness of the shortcoming

• combining two sentences into one sentence – this gives the reader less time to ponder on the

negative content
Other words to avoid are adverbs such as regrettably and unfortunately , and the link
word moreover. Moreover tends to be used when you have said something negative,
and then add further negative details. On the other hand, in addition ( further, fur-
thermore, also etc) are used to add to any already positive or neutral comment. So I
could say to my students:
S3. You are the worst class I have ever had. Moreover , you appear to understand absolutely
nothing .
S4. You are the best class I have ever had. In addition , you appear to understand absolutely
everything .

9.5 Clarify exactly what your limitations are
When you outline the limitations, you need to be clear what these limitations are
and what exactly the implications are. S1 and S2 fail to do this.

S1. *One limitation of our research was the sample size, which was too small.
S2. *The unfortunate contamination of a few of our samples may mean that some of our
conclusions are somewhat misleading.

S1 and S2 are not very helpful and are not likely to please your referees. S1 does not
explain why and in what way the sample size was too small, nor what the conse-
quences of this were. S2 does not explain why or how the samples were contami-
nated, nor to what extent the conclusions are misleading.

S3 and S4 provide much more information, and do so in a more positive way that
does not undermine your research too dramatically: