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S2 is more modest. It does not explicitly state the importance of the approach and
the conditional would makes the claim more tentative. S3 is even more modest.

To protect yourself from accusations that you are too certain about your fi ndings
you can use adverbs and adverbial phrases such as somewhat, to a certain extent,
relatively , and essentially as well as adverbs of probability and possibility such as
probably, likely , and possibly . For example, both S4 and S5 could be considered
very strong claims in certain circumstances.

S4. X is related to Y.
S5. X is certainly related to Y.

S6 and S7 take a more indirect approach.
S6. X is somehow related to Y.
S7. X is likely related to Y.

S6 is a hedge on how X is related to Y, whereas S7 is a hedge on the probability of
X being related to Y.

Other useful adverbs for taking an indirect approach to interpreting the level of

certainty in your findings are: apparently, presumably, seemingly .

10.6 Inserting adverbs to tone down strong claims

Different adverbs indicate different levels of confidence. If you are talking about
how visible something is or how easy it is to detect, you could say:
S1. X was clearly visible.
S2. X was scarcely detectable.

S1 and S2 indicate confidence at both extremes of the visibility spectrum. However,

if you think that there is an element of subjectivity in this visibility you can insert
another adverb or phrase to reduce the power of the main adverb. So you could say:

S3. X was reasonably clearly visible.
S4. X was scarcely detectable, at least in our experiments.

You can use the same techniques to describe the level of agreement, correlation or
matching.

S5. Our data fit perfectly with those of Mkrtchyan.