Week 7 companion · the moves that make writing sound like science
Every discipline has its signature moves. Here are ours — steal them freely.
Scientific writing isn't conversation written down — it's an argument assembled in public, where every claim shows its evidence. That shift starts with your verbs. Authors in your paper don't "say" or "believe" things; they argue, demonstrate, contend. Results don't "talk about" anything; they reveal, support, contradict. Get the verbs right and the whole paper stands up straighter.
And here's the liberating part: expert writers all use the same stock of moves and phrases to organize their arguments. Using them isn't plagiarism — it's learning the grammar of the genre, the same way musicians learn scales (Graff & Birkenstein, 2021). The templates below are yours.
| When you're… | Reach for |
|---|---|
| Presenting a claim | Smith (1994) argues, asserts, claims, contends, emphasizes, suggests, concludes |
| Reporting a finding | The results revealed, showed, indicated, demonstrated, suggested |
| Noting agreement | These results corroborate, confirm, support, verify, substantiate, are consistent with |
| Noting conflict | The findings refute, contradict, call into question, are contrary to |
Banned from your verb bank: states, says, believes, talks about, feels. Those are for interviews, not arguments.
Each situation in a paper has phrases that professionals reach for. Borrow the skeleton; the content is yours.
Introducing the standard view: Conventional wisdom has it that… · Historically, it has been assumed that…
Introducing a controversy: Twenty years ago, the notion that ___ seemed preposterous; within the past few years, however, several researchers have shown that…
Describing: Taylor (1999), in her ___ theory, argued that… · According to Smith (2010), people…
Challenging: A major weakness of this idea is that… · Although it is true that X, it does not necessarily follow that Y… · These findings are at odds with those of Hu (1994)…
Handling mixed evidence: The evidence supporting Hu's (2001) theory is mixed. On the one hand… on the other hand…
At present, research has yet to establish whether… · Relatively little empirical research has been devoted to… · The scant research to date suggests that…
These phrases are the hinge of your entire literature review — they're how the funnel turns toward your study.
Together, such studies suggest… · A growing body of research suggests… · In short, the bulk of the evidence supports…
Notice what these do: they force you to talk about studies collectively — exactly what separates a synthesis from a list.
The thesis: The premise of this paper is that… · To our knowledge, there is no empirical data to suggest… · The purpose of the current study was to examine…
Signaling an idea is yours: It seems plausible that… · Thus, it can be surmised that… · One interpretation of these findings is that…
Backing it with evidence: Consistent with this notion, recent research confirms that… · Indeed, research confirms that…
Limitations: Although there is compelling evidence that X, some limitations must be acknowledged… · Until the issue of X is resolved, caution is advised in interpreting these results.
Future research: An important avenue for future research is to identify…
Practical implications: These findings have significant applications in…; for example…
The closing paragraph: In short, the emerging body of evidence suggests X, and in doing so has enhanced our understanding of the relationship between A and B.
Transitions tell the reader what kind of sentence is coming — without them, prose sounds choppy and readers get lost between ideas.
| To… | Open with |
|---|---|
| Clarify | That is; In other words; In effect; In short |
| Give an example | Specifically; For example; Indeed; In fact |
| Concede a point | Admittedly; Of course; To be sure |
| Emphasize | Interestingly; Surprisingly; Importantly |
| Show cause | As a result; Consequently; Therefore; Thus |
| Contrast | By contrast; However; Whereas; Nonetheless |
| Add a parallel | Similarly; In a similar vein; Moreover; Furthermore |
| Wrap up | In sum; In essence; Overall; In conclusion |
| Connect to predictions | Consistent with predictions; Contrary to predictions; As predicted |
Organization doesn't happen while you type — it's created beforehand, by you, on purpose. For your literature review: sort your articles by the argument you're making, never by publication year. Chronological order is what a pile looks like; thematic order is what an argument looks like. Your Week 4 synthesis matrix already did the sorting — your outline is that matrix stood upright: themes become sections, the gap becomes the turn, your hypothesis becomes the destination.
Flabby: "Smith (2020) talks about how social media is bad for teens and Jones (2021) also says stuff about this." Rewrite it with argument verbs and a synthesis move, then compare.
"Emerging research links adolescent social media use to poorer well-being. Smith (2020) demonstrated that heavier use predicted increased anxiety over one school year, and Jones (2021) reported converging results in a larger national sample. Together, such studies suggest the association is robust across methods — though its direction remains contested."
Same two citations. Now it argues, synthesizes, and even opens a gap.
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews. Review of General Psychology, 1(3), 311–320. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.1.3.311
Bem, D. J. (2004). Writing the empirical journal article. In J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna, & H. L. Roediger III (Eds.), The compleat academic: A career guide (2nd ed., pp. 185–219). American Psychological Association.
Graff, G., & Birkenstein, C. (2021). "They say / I say": The moves that matter in academic writing (5th ed.). W. W. Norton.
Landrum, R. E. (2020). Undergraduate writing in psychology: Learning to tell the scientific story (3rd ed.). American Psychological Association.