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her idea. She is saying: “I may be wrong about what I am saying. My research may

not be sufficiently robust to support this idea – and this is my responsibility. So,
don’t worry if it contradicts what you think.” By doing this she helps / hopes to
make her claim more readily acceptable to the community and therefore gain cred-
ibility in her fi eld.

Using phrases such as I argue is what is known as authorial voice. In many lan-
guages such a device is not used and it may sound strange, unnatural or even unim-
portant for you to use it. However, your decision should be based on the style
permitted in your journal and the expectations of your referees and readers, rather
than necessarily what would be expected in your own language.

In S2, the author is perhaps making a claim that is less controversial or already has
some support in the community. Note that the verb argue could be replaced by sug-
gest, propose or hypothesize .

Other verbs you could use in this context are: infer, calculate , and believe .

You can also use nouns for the same purpose:

Our interpretation of these results is…
My perspective on these fi ndings is…

10.9 Saving other authors' faces: put their research
in a positive light
It is fine to question other people’s findings and conclusions. Even the most repu-

table papers sometimes include poor research. But when you do make criticisms,
ensure that you always do so in a constructive way that still manages to put the
original research in a positive light. In this way you save the original author’s face,
i.e. their reputation and position in the academic world.

Let’s imagine that so far in the literature one hypothesis, H1, has been proposed as
an explanation for a certain phenomenon x . You are proposing a different hypothe-
sis, H2, which completely contradicts H1 and proves it to be wrong. You don’t want
to be overtly critical of H1, because the referee of your paper could even be the
person who initially proposed H1, or at least is a big supporter of it. Equally impor-
tantly, readers will more readily accept your objections if you phrase them in a
constructive way.