Page 57 - Modul Academic Writing

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Tentative Language
Most of people think that to write a good paper, our choices of words must be
undeniably right. Unless you are positively certain and completely confident that
your results and conclusion are correct (undebatable); it is better to express your
explanation in tentative language. Compare these sentences:

Sentence 1 Sentence 2
Leaf carbon and phenolic content did not As the maxima and minima did not
differ across sites, indicating that the correspond to high and low tides, it is
response of secondary plant chemicals possible that the patterns observed may
such as phenolics to water is complex. not be the result of mixing of waters with
different concentrations.
Less tentative sentence: Tentative sentence:
 The finding is presented with  There are phrases “it is possible”
absolute certainty. and “may not be”.
 The conclusion/claim needs to be  Those phrases indicate that other
supported by strong evidence. explanations are possible.
Taken from www.services.unimelb.edu.au/academicskills

… Tip …

 The use of tentative language means that you are cautious in your claims, since data
is often open to various interpretation and what is ‘known’ can
change as new discoveries are made.
 The use of tentative language allows you to indicate your level of
confidence in your conclusions and the strength of the evidence on
which you are basing your claims.
 Tentative language is also used to avoid over-generalization.

You can use qualifiers and quantifiers in your
explanation. However, to avoid over-
generalization, be careful with your choices of
qualifiers and quantifiers.

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