GSP – Spelling & Vocabulary
Academic Reporting Verbs
Why think about your use of reporting verbs?
We use reporting verbs all the time – it’s that he said X..., she told me about Y... We often
relate to another person, what someone else has said. The problem happens with our
approach to academic written work.
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Degree work is supposed to be reasoned, critical, intellectual, informed, and, above
all, logical.
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Your choice of language gives your reader (your marker) a clear impression of
whether you are achieving this.
What types of verbs should be avoided in academic written work?
What this means in practice is that unless you know the rules of academic style so
thoroughly, and have sufficient mastery and experience to be allowed to ‘break’ these
rules, it’s just not logical to claim that a source, text or scholar can actively instruct us from
the page.
So verbs or verb phrases such as to see, to look at, to talk about, to show, to say, to tell, to
think, to move on are rather redundant – unless you are actually conveying what someone
said during a speech, for example.
What can you use instead?
When referring to what your paper’s argument or the sources or their authors are
conveying here are some verbs you might try using:
to describe
to dispute
to comment
to observe
to discuss
to state
to argue
to evaluate
to predict
to suggest
to define
to proceed
to illustrate
to believe
to assert
to conclude
to recognise
to purport
to investigate
to estimate
Academic Skills Advice service
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills/
to criticise
to demonstrate
to concede
to report
to indicate
to highlight
to confirm
to examine
to advance
to imply
to hypothesise
to theorise
to posit
to challenge
to postulate
to defend
How are they used?
They can be used in an active sentence in the present tense:

Henson (2010) implies here that should further research be commissioned its focus
should...

The researchers assert that their findings were conclusive, not merely suggestive
(Fenwick et al., 2008).
They can be used in an active sentence in the past tense:

Peshan’s study of the previous decade investigated the effect of blood glucose on
perceived concentration levels (2010).

Cross hypothesised that over-exposure to ‘sanitised violence’ could lead to
propensity for aggressive response (2002).
They can be used in passive constructions in the present tense:

It is argued in this essay that in certain cases there is little evidence to support...

The worsening situation within this sector is demonstrated in the report which
follows.
Likewise, they can be easily used in passive constructions in the past tense:

It has been suggested by two recent studies that...
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Academic Skills Advice service
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
Discrepancies in the data have been criticised by current studies and these
criticisms form the basis of this paper’s argument.
They can also be used in active, personal pronoun sentences when reflective writing is
being used, in either present or past tense:

In the following reflection, I argue that it was appropriate to defer to my mentor in
this case due to my clinical experience being limited.

I assert that neither theory is adequate in its totality; however, a combination of the
effective elements of both is more effective and directly applicable.
When are they used? Deciding the ‘expressive strength’ of reporting verbs.
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Fairly neutral reporting verbs become less neutral if they are taken as the key
point of somebody’s hypothesis or theory. If an experimental paper set out to
‘describe’ features of something, then this becomes the author’s main focus –
not just something used to explain a scenario or situation, for instance.
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Some reporting verbs feel obvious when compared with one another:
purporting is ‘weaker’ than claiming something; arguing is ‘stronger’ than
suggesting; challenging is ‘weaker’ than disputing something.
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What it is important to remember is that once you know what all the verbs mean
then they can be used appropriately as you like with varying degrees of
‘expressive strength’.
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Don’t forget, the list above is not exhaustive – there are many more you are
likely to come across within your reading.
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Academic Skills Advice service
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills/