How to use cautious language

You can use cautious language to indicate:

  • your level of confidence in your conclusions
  • the strength of the evidence on which you are basing your claims.

For example, the statement below makes an unqualified or absolute claim:

“There is no doubt that Australia will always have three levels of government.”

Such a strong claim is difficult to support by evidence, because it makes an absolute statement about something that may happen in the future.

Using the example above, you can include modal verbs (e.g. could, may), and other qualifiers (e.g. generally, somewhat, suggests) to rework the claim as:

“Williams (2021) suggests that Australia will probably continue to have three levels of government.”

This way you indicate that the cited evidence is not sufficient to make an outright claim, and/or that other interpretations are possible too.

Below, you can see the different linguistic elements used to express a more cautious tone.

[1] Williams (2021) [2] suggests that Australia [3] will [4] probably continue to have three levels of government.

[1] Author-prominent citation [2] Reporting verb (low certainty) [3] Modal verb [4] Adverb (adds meaning to the verb)

Note

Using hedging is linked to an objective writing style in academic English. In general, you will see a greater level of certainty expressed in scientific texts that deal with empirically measurable results or evidence. Texts that deal with implications, conceptual or subjective evidence - especially in the humanities - tend to use more cautious language and hedging.