Hedging and Assertiveness

Hedging

When you are not sure about the correctness of your explanations, inferences, and/or implications, or there are more than several possible factors/variables, you can avoid being  direct and definite. This is called hedging.

The following are some ways of hedging:

• The use of modals: may, might, can, could, would

[38] The low number of births on weekends could be because doctors do not work on weekends in the U.S.

[39] Investigation of the genetic alteration HNSCC may be useful in the development of both detection and treatment areas …

[40] X seems more accurate than Y

[41] … we could classify …

[42] The Heatmap can show us …

[43] … it would be a better idea to …

• The use of verbs: seem, appear, suggest, indicate

[44] The reason for the high number of births on weekdays seems to be that many mothers schedule their c-section or induced labours on days when doctors are working.

• The use of adjectives: possible, probable

[45] A possible reason for the trends seen in the box plot is that doctors do not work on weekends in the U.S.

• The use of adverbs: possibly, probably

[46] This is possibly because doctors do not work on weekends in the U.S.

You are encouraged to use different word classes to hedge depending on your need. However, excessive hedging (i.e. in every sentence) may make your explanations less convincing.

Assertiveness

You may want to be definite in some statements in the project report. Should can be used in the Discussion and Conclusion.

[47] … further experiments should combine the biological support and statistical efforts together …