WAYS OF SHOWING AND AVOIDING COMMITMENT  

　　Ways of showing commitment  

　　Use first person pronoun as subject: I, We  

　　Use verbs with first person subject: advocate, believe, feel, know, mean, think, understand  

　　Use personalized expressions: it seems to me, it appears, from my point of view, in my view, in my opinion  

　　Use attitudinal signals such as: assuredly, certainly, definitely, indisputably, undeniably, undoubtedly, unquestionably  

　　clearly, obviously, plainly  

　　fortunately, unfortunately, unhappily  

　　significantly  

　　rightly, wrongly  

　　Use verbs like should, must, ought to Ways of ’hedging’ or avoiding commitment Avoid using first person pronouns Use impersonal subjects, such as it Use passive voice so as to avoid specifying an agent or ’doer’ such as: It can be imagined that ... Large numbers of foreign students have been admitted ...  

　　Use verbs (often with an impersonal subject) such as: hear, guess, imagine, suggest, suppose signals such as: apparently, arguably, hypothetically, ideally, possibly, seemingly, superficially hopefully, strangely, unexpectedly, regrettably Use verbs such as: could, would, may, might