Page 188 - English for Writing Research Papers

172

S1. *Although many authors have investigated how PhD students write papers, this is the first
attempt to systematically analyze all the written output (papers, reports, grant proposals,
CVs etc.) of such students.
S2. *Our results demonstrate that students from humanistic fields produce longer written

texts than students from the pure sciences and this is due to the fact that humanists are
more verbose than pure scientists.
Some referees might interpret these as being arrogant because the authors leave no
room for doubt. In S1 can they be sure that this is the fi rst attempt? Have they read
all the literature from all the world? In S2 they are only talking about their interpre-
tation of their results that came from their sample – they cannot be sure that other
researchers will not have a different interpretation or draw different conclusions
from a different sample. Also, this is due to the fact gives the idea that this is the
only possible explanation, whereas in such a subjective area there will certainly be
other interpretations.

Not all referees will interpret S1 and S2 as being too assertive. In fact scientists from
many parts of the world write like this in their native language. So they are unlikely
to criticize it when they see it in English. In addition, not all scientists are in favor
of hedging, particularly as it is a very culture-driven device (see extract by Alistair
Wood in Sect. 11.3 ).

However, it is not difficult to hedge your propositions. Hedging is unlikely to com-

promise the publication of your paper and in most cases will increase it, as illus-
trated in S3 and S4 (which are revised versions of S1 and S2):

S3. Although many authors have investigated how PhD students write papers, we believe / as

far as we know / to the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to systematically ana-
lyze all the written output (papers, reports, grant proposals, CVs etc.) of such students.
S4. Our results would seem to demonstrate that students from humanistic fields produce more

written work than students from the pure sciences and this may be due to the fact that
humanists are generally more verbose than pure scientists.
Obviously you don’t need to ‘hedge’ every time you use the verbs show, demon-
strate, reveal etc. So for example, you can say: Table 2 shows that X had higher
values than Y .

You only need to consider ‘hedging’ when you are making a big statement that could
be open to interpretation or contention. In S5 the author is making a claim that goes
against currently accepted knowledge (or myth) that cats are smarter than dogs.

S5. *Our results prove that dogs are more intelligent than cats.