Academic writing style: Hedging

Exercises

Exercise 1

Identify the hedging expressions in the following sentences.

1. There is no difficulty in explaining how a structure such as an eye or a feather contributes to survival and reproduction; the difficulty is in thinking of a series of steps by which it could have arisen.
2. For example, it is possible to see that in January this person weighed 60.8 kg for eight days,
3. For example, it may be necessary for the spider to leave the branch on which it is standing, climb up the stem, and walk out along another branch.
4. Escherichia coli , when found in conjunction with urethritis, often indicate infection higher in the uro-genital tract.
5. There is experimental work to show that a week or ten days may not be long enough and a fortnight to three weeks is probably the best theoretical period.
6. Conceivably, different forms, changing at different rates and showing contrasting combinations of characteristics, were present in different areas.
7. One possibility is that generalized latent inhibition is likely to be weaker than that produced by pre-exposure to the CS itself and thus is more likely to be susceptible to the effect of the long interval.
8. For our present purpose, it is useful to distinguish two kinds of chemical reaction, according to whether the reaction releases energy or requires it.
9. It appears to establish three categories: the first contains wordings generally agreed to be acceptable, the second wordings which appear to have been at some time problematic but are now acceptable, and the third wordings which remain inadmissible.

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