Academic reporting verbs

Academic writing (and to a lesser extent, academic speaking) it will often be necessary to refer to the research of others and to report on their findings.

In order to do so, we have to use reporting verbs such as 'evans (1994) suggests that....

Difficulty with using reporting verbs is that there are many different verbs, and each of them has slightly different, and often subtle shades of meaning.

What are some of the main language points that need to be considered when using reporting verbs?

Verbs differ in terms of their strength; for example, 'to suggest' is much weaker, and more tentative, than 'to argue'.

The two verbs convey very different pictures about how the author you are studying sees his or her materials and reporting verbs are used principally to say what the writer does and does not do.

These verbs do not indicate any value judgement on the part of the writer; they are called 'neutral' reporting verbs.

Second group of verbs is used to show when the writer has an inclination to believe something but still wishes to be hesitant; we call these 'tentative' reporting y, if the writer has strong arguments to put forward and is absolutely sure of his or her ground, we can use 'strong' reporting verbs to refer to these sly, it is important (when we read) to ensure that we interpret the writer's ideas correctly.

It is very important, in academic writing, not to misinterpret a writer's intentions when we are reporting the table below, the main reporting verbs in english are classified in terms of their function, and their on and l: verbs used to say what the writer describes in factual terms, demonstrates, refers to, and discusses, and verbs used to explain his/her be, show, reveal, study, demonstate, note, point out, indicate, report, observe, assume, take into consideration, examine, go on to say that, state, believe (unless this is a strong belief), mention, on and ive: verbs used to say what the writer suggests or speculates on (without being absolutely certain).

Speculate, intimate, hypothesise, moot, imply, propose, recommend, posit the view that, question the view that, postulate, on and : verbs used to say what the writer makes strong arguments and claims , claim, emphasise, contend, maintain, assert, theorize, support the view that, deny, negate, refute, reject, challenge, strongly believe that, counter the view/argument that, etc.

What are some of the main language points that need to be considered when using reporting verbs?

Structure of sentences when using reporting verbs can vary, and can be flexible; for example:Jones (1999) argues, in his study of thermodynamics, that...

Is possible (and often quite attractive stylistically) to invert the subject and verb when reporting:E.

Often, in academic writing, reporting takes place in the present tense, as in the examples above; this is because of the need to bring past research into the present you have used the verb 'said' very often in your writing, try to replace this with something more descriptive and words 'mention' or 'reckon' are informal and are often best replaced with a more formal informal verbs of saying that are best avoided in academic writing are: 'come up with', 'guess', regards referencing, it is usually best to put the year of publication straight after the name used, before going on with the sentence.