Personal Commitment in Academic Writing

Abstract

Being informative without becoming persuasive when writing for academic purposes seems to be a difficult task connected with the use of natural language as the language of science.

According to Master until a fact is absolutely proven, scientists can only make sophisticated guesses based on their research. When reporting the results of such research, scientific writers must be careful to indicate whether their results are proven facts or probable facts. They do this by means of hedging, the qualification of the truth of a statement. Hedging is accomplished by means of 1) modals or 2) a statement of probability with a subordinate clause.

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