Creating a bank of useful phrases for hedging in the Introduction and Discussion sections of theses and dissertations in English

Abstract

Hedging devices are among essential elements of academic writing for supporting or rejecting hypotheses or theories. Therefore, the aim of this diploma paper is to propose a bank of useful phrases for hedging in the Introduction and Discussion sections of theses and dissertations in English. In order to accomplish that aim, a thirty (30) theses/dissertations corpus taken from the websites of Brigham Young University, Portland State University, and The University of Edinburgh was compiled and manually processed to assure whether a word functions as a hedge or not. The bank will help improve students‟ proficiency when writing research papers, term papers and diploma papers throughout their study years and future professional careers.