Reporting verbs and message

Reporting verbs and message

Acknowledge	Ask	Confirm	Determine	Express	Infer	Reject
Add	Assert	Contend	Discuss	Formulate	List	Reveal
Admit	Assume	Convey	Doubt	Identify	Maintain	Show
Advise	Caution	Declare	Endorse	Illustrate	Postulate	State
Advocate	Concede	Define	Establish	Imply	Propose	Stress
Agree	Concentrate	Deny	Examine	Include	Presume	Suggest
Argue	Condone	Describe	Explore	Indicate	Refute	Survey

Examples of reporting verbs	The message
Say, write, document, report, study	Giving factual information
View, believe, think, regard, consider, reflect	What the author thought
Categorise, assess, examine, use, compare, contrast, focus on, explain Emphasise, invoke, note, point out, reason, posit, hypothesise, remark, detail	The procedure/ How the author did it
Find, observe, obtain, associate, conclude, recommend	What the author found
Challenge, dismiss, dispute, diverge from, object to, oppose,	Considers the cited author’s position
Demonstrate, identify, improve, recognize, substantiate, highlight, confirm, prove	Your evaluation of the work
confuse, disregard, ignore, misuse, neglect, misinterpret, generalize, insist	Your negative evaluation of the work

Adapted from Chen (2001, p. 81) ‘Ways of knowing, ways of citing: a study of Chinese graduate students’ citation behaviour in thesis writing’