Evaluative language

Evaluative language includes positive, negative or neutral words and expressions that convey a judgement or an appraisal. The use of such language indicates your considered attitude to the particular topic – that is, your critical position.

Hedging and boosting – expressing certainty

Hedging, also called “cautious language”, can be used to indicate levels of certainty and make your critical position sound qualified and well-reasoned. There are many reasons why you might use hedging:

  • Distance your position from another author or proposition.
  • Giving a qualified explanation or hypothesis.
  • Explaining results.
  • Discussing implications, interpretations, recommendations, cautions, the future.
  • Avoiding over-generalisation.

You can express low, medium or high certainty to consolidate your critical position. Expressing high certainty is called boosting. Hedging is expressed through the use of modal verbs and qualifiers like adverbs of probability.

Modal verbs include: may, can, must, could, appear to, will and should.

Adverbs of probability include: sometimes, probably, definitely, possibly, generally, never.