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In this lesson you will learn 9 examples of hedging language that you can use NOW to make your writing sound more academic in Writing Task 2.
This lesson is Day 17 of the free Advent Challenge.
Compare the two statements below. Which one is more appropriate for academic writing?
‘Young people prefer to eat fast food.’
‘It is often thought that many young people tend to eat food which may be considered to be unhealthy. Although some youngsters might go to fast food outlets quite regularly when compared to older age groups, evidence suggests that in general this assumption is largely untrue’.
You’re right! Sentence 2 is much better (though it is a little too long – I tried to include as many examples of hedging as possible, as you will see below).
In academic writing it is REALLY important to show the difference between
A simple way to do this is to say ‘In my opinion’ or ‘I believe/think that…’
e.g. ‘I believe that young people prefer to eat fast food’.
But you can’t do this for every sentence.
So if you’re not 100% sure that your claims are correct (you have no evidence to support your claims*) you need to ‘hedge’.
[*claim (noun) = a statement that something is true, even though it has not been proved]
Hedging (or ‘being cautious’) has many benefits:
Look again at the long sentence I wrote (Sentence 2 above).
How many examples of hedging can you identify?
‘[It is often thought that] [many] young people [tend to] eat food [which may be considered to be] unhealthy. [Although] [some] youngsters [might] go to fast food outlets [quite] [regularly] [when compared to older age groups], [evidence suggests] that [in general] this [assumption] is [largely] untrue‘.
You can see that if you take out the hedging [in brackets] you are left with a statement that may be untrue, inaccurate or just too general.
Here are some options for you to use in your own writing:
‘It’ and ‘That’ clauses
Adverbs of frequency
Quantifiers
‘Hedging’ verbs
Modals
Modal language
Modal Adverbs
Passives
Modifiers
Comparison
Evidence
Task 1: Can you spot the hedging in these sentences?
Task 2: Take this generalisation and ‘hedge’ it e.g.
Men prefer science subjects whereas women choose arts subjects.
There are many ways of re-writing this to make it sound more academic e.g.
If you are new to hedging, there is a danger that you might hedge too much and use too many ‘redundant’ words (words that you don’t need to say).
Here are some examples that I wrote when I was trying to create the ‘hedging sentence’ that I posted at the start of this blog.
Topic: The danger of video games
Too simplistic:
‘Video games makes people violent’.
Too much hedging:
‘It is often thought by some people that perhaps many youngsters might possibly prefer to spend a large proportion of their time playing video games that might be considered as arguably having the potential to be dangerous in certain circumstances.’
Appropriate level of hedging:
Topic: British food
Too simplistic:
‘British food is awful.’
Too much hedging:
‘It is likely that some aspects of British cuisine might arguably be considered to be somewhat bland when compared to other cuisines which tend to favour using a wider variety of flavourings which have the potential to produce food which can safely be labelled as ‘tasty’.
Appropriate level of hedging
‘British food is often considered to be somewhat lacking in variety when compared to the cuisines of other countries’.
Get more practice and a free booklet about word formation
How to use ‘despite’ and ‘in spite of’
How to use concession in Writing Task 2.
How to write complex sentences for IELTS.
Coherence and Cohesion for IELTS Task 2.
‘Not only but also’ and inversion
How to use ‘the former, the latter’
How to correct your grammar mistakes in IELTS
Check out my links to more free resources that can help you study at home.
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