Verbs and my PhD 👩🎓🎉
Correct use of Verbs ! 🙌🎶 The soul of academic writing
For many, the second name of PhD thesis and academic writing is the correct use of verb.
WHAT IS VERB? 🤔🙄
Doing words; words that do some actions. For instance:
Ø Physical actions ⛷🤺 (run, Jump, skip, ……);
Ø Mental actions 😵😇 (thought, imagined, …..); OR
Ø a state of being or existence of something 🎭 (is, am, are, was , were, will be, ….).
WHAT VERBS DO? 🤼♀️🗣
To persuade different kind of audiences to accept different kind of facts.
There are different set of verbs used to:
1: show research acts (like real-word activities, usually found in findings phrases, e.g. observe, report, describe, discover, notice, show)
2: show procedures (e.g. analyse, calculate, explore),
3: show cognition acts (verbs connected with mental processes like believe, conceptualise, view) and
4: show discourse acts (to recall different kinds of speech like discuss, state, suggests, hypothesise))
The different disciplines use different set of verbs, for instance, Humanities tend to favour discourse act verbs (in Humanities, the person who did the work is important so the verbs tend to reflect what the person said and how they said it), and Sciences tend to use research act verbs.
REPORTING VERBS 🤷♀️🧗♀️
The reporting verbs in academic writing used to report what someone said while evaluating the quality of others’ ideas. These verbs show how we assess and view others, ideas.
Ø Neutral reporting verbs (a neutral attitude on literature as ‘neither correct nor incorrect’)
Ø Tentative/weaker reporting verbs (a weak belief that literature is incorrect)
Ø Strong reporting verbs (a strong belief that literature is correct)
1: NEUTRAL: verbs used to say what the writer describes in factual terms, demonstrates, refers to, and discusses, and verbs used to explain his/her methodology.
Example verbs 🐾
describe, show, reveal, study, demonstrate, 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, etc.
2: TENTATIVE: verbs used to say what the writer suggests or speculates on (without being absolutely certain).
Example verbs 🐾
suggest, speculate, intimate, hypothesise, moot, imply, propose, recommend, posit the view that, question the view that, postulate, etc.
3: STRONG: verbs used to say what the writer makes strong arguments and claims for.
Example verbs 🐾
argue, claim, emphasise, contend, maintain, assert, theorize, support the view that, deny, negate, refute, reject, challenge, strongly believe that, counter the view/argument that, etc.
You need to see where you should use ‘argues’, ‘shows’ or ‘asserts’. Just look the words into dictionary and decide which to use. For example, a scholar who argues typically has an evidence than other who merely asserts.
HOW TO MAKE A VERB CHEAT SHEET? 🤯🧐🤫
Download a few published papers from scholars of your field and make🤦♀️ a list of the verbs they use. Closely examine the use and placement of verbs by others researchers. Then cluster the verbs into three columns: this work is great/this is awesome, this work is fine/I feel neutral, this work is terrible/this work is poor.
Make and share your sheet with others. You can paste this sheet to your notice board, wall or laptop wallpaper. If English is your second language, can make a list in your first language along with English and stick it by side. Add an emoji to make it lively and ‘yours’.
While writing your literature review, methodology, data analysis or findings (etc), close your eyes, think about your feelings what you feel about particular work and then pick a word that fits better to your judgement.
See a cheat sheet below taken from the book ‘How to fix your academic writing trouble’ written by Dr. Inger Mewburn.
This is the list I made to put on my own wall – you may disagree with my categories. Feel free to change it to suit your style.
This work is awesome! 😍
argues concludes explains Demonstrates
differentiates identifies Critiques deduces
discriminates Evaluates proves assesses
Examines distinguishes predicts Proposes
assesses integrates Discusses illustrates
outlines
I feel neutral 🤦♀️
Shows applies outlines Composes
proposes uses States organises
differentiates produces examines Separates
develops appraises Selects performs
illustrates Interprets paraphrases reports
Prepares restates reviews classifies
contrasts Debates relates produces
This work is poor 🗑✂
Asserts chooses justifies Invents
constructs States makes selects
Recalls recites tells Generalizes
changes Characterises
👌📌📎Bibliography (See for more detailed information)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/globalpad/openhouse/academicenglishskills/grammar/reportingverbs/
https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/article/downloads/reporting-verbs-2.pdf
‘How to fix your academic writing trouble, A practical guide’ by Inger Mewburn, Katherine Firth and Shaun Lehmann. 2019.
