How to express the author’s position through modality in an academic text

Modal verbs are one of the first language means we learn when studying the English language. However, as we craft an academic text, we have to ask ourselves if modal verbs and other means of modality are as common and appropriate in the academic style as they are in everyday communication. 

At the workshop "Show your attitude: Modality as an element of the author’s voice" on April 8, the AWC speaker and trainer Ekaterina Redkina invited colleagues to discuss the use of modality in research articles. The workshop participants practiced using grammatical, lexical, and stylistic means of modality in academic texts and analyzed the degree of modality in different sections of an IMRaD article. The key takeaway: modality is the main vehicle of the author’s position and stance, which in its turn is an essential element of a strong and persuasive academic text. Explore the best academic writing practices in your field and apply the modality tools to make your voice distinctive in your writing.

This time we met offline, so apart from new knowledge and skills the participants enjoyed a lively in-person discussion, a warm atmosphere, and tea with biscuits:

• “Great discussion! The workshop offered a lot of useful information and good communication.”
• “Everything was useful: materials, exercises, phrases, working with participants’ own writing.”
• “Exercises, examples, and discussion about different cases of using modality were valuable for me.”

For those who are missing face-to-face communication, we have great news: this semester we are offering one more offline workshop, which will focus on pronunciation and intonation. Register now and join us in May!