Hedging - Help students posh up their academic writing.

Teachers, have you ever heard of 'hedging'? Rest assured, you'll know what this is, but you might not have heard the term. It simply refers to the cautious language we use in academic writing. (See examples below!) Having a name for it and working through some focussed lessons in hedging will help students' academic writing tremendously!

Please note, this blog has been written with your students as my audience, so you can easily pass it on to them!

What is hedging?

You might have heard of ‘hedging your bets’.  Being cautious so that whatever the outcome, you can’t lose.  Hedging, in academic writing is cautious language.  It is used to show you’re not 100% behind what you’re saying?  What?  That sounds like the opposite of teachers want, doesn’t it? 

What we mean is that you’re acknowledging that these are your thoughts, this is what you’ve worked out, but you know others might have different ideas.  For example:

• The extended metaphor of a silver fern in this poem suggests the poet is proud of her country of origin – Aotearoa New Zealand.

• The relationship between these characters might frustrate some viewers, however…

• Foreshadowing at this point is presumably intended to keep readers…

• The death of the main character implies the author’s confidence in…

Hedging also shows you’re not silly enough to generalise!

• Climate change is at the forefront of most people’s minds.  (It’s not necessarily at the forefront of everyone’s mind!)

• We often forget that sugar leads to more than just a ‘sugar-flop’ half an hour later.  (We don’t always forget.)

Why is hedging important in academic writing?

On the one hand it might sound like the coward’s way out (why not commit 100%, right?!), however:

• It shows you respect the views of others – you understand others might think or know differently. Hedging gives an air of humility to the writing (that is, you sound humble), giving the impression you’re open to further discussion/debate.

• Makes writing more credible because the writer is acknowledging that the ideas of others may be equally valid. 

• It shows you’re not arrogant enough to think you know everything.

• Hedging makes writing sound less opinionated, so readers are more likely to be open to the suggestions.  Delivering ideas aggressively just gets people’s backs up!

• For published writers, there’s less likelihood of being challenged because you haven’t said that anything is a fact or written in stone.

• It shows you’re not careless enough to generalise.

• It shows you’re thinking critically!  This is what we expect of an academic!

Let's look at some examples!

To express uncertainty:

Instead of will (modals): 

• This may…

• This might…

• This could…

Instead of all/every/always (Quantifiers):

• Many

• Few/a few

• Some

• Plenty of

• Often

• Frequently

• Sometimes

• Usually

• Generally

To limit the strength of claims:

Instead of we know/this proves…

• We assume that…

• It seems that…

• …appears to be…

• …suggests that…

• …alludes to…

• This leans toward the idea that...

• This indicates…

• This tends to cause…

• This is presumably…

• This is arguably better than…

• This connotes…

• This implies…

• We can infer that…

Instead of definitely/is…

• The author possibly feels…  It is possible that…

• This is probably a deliberate attempt to…

• Likely shaken recent technological breakthroughs, the author… 

• Presumably, the director hoped to…

• This is arguably because…

• This is potentially…

• This appears to show/be…

Note also that you can use vocabulary suggesting commitment/certainty before many of the examples above to make writing sound confident while still, with the hedging word, not actually commit!  For example:

• We can assume that…

• It must seem that…

• It definitely appears that…

• This absolutely leans toward…

So that’s a good little trick to keep up your sleeve!

Grab this freebie for your students by clicking the image above to join us! It includes hedging as well as METALANGUAGE and helpful words and phrases to enhance academic writing. (Alternatively, use your login on our website to access our FREEBIES library!

The pronouns you use:

While not strictly 'hedging', the pronouns we use in academic writing follow the same initiative. We already know not to use first person pronouns (I, me, my) because they sound informal, but they're also a way of being cautious in your claims. They're less personal, keeping your removed from your views and, in the case of inclusive pronouns you get to take everyone down with you!

Use

• Third person – one, the audience, audiences (when referring to a range of audience types), readers, viewers.

• Inclusive pronouns – we, us.  Eg:  We believe that… v. I believe that...

Have fun!

Watch/listen on YouTube if you're dead keen! Click the image above. :)

Teachers, here are a few resources you might find useful as your students embark on their formal/academic writing:

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