Why are qualifiers used

Sometimes it carries over from the way you speak—perhaps you are a dramatic storyteller who uses lots of intensifiers to express your strong feelings. If you are using qualifiers to try to create interest and drama, perhaps you could explore other strategies that would be more appropriate for academic writing, like using stronger verbs and including more interesting details.

If you are using qualifiers because of a lack of confidence, ask yourself: do I need to do more research to feel confident of my claims?

Do I need to talk with my regular readers and let them know more about the kinds of feedback that are, and are not, helpful for me? But how? One method is to read through your paper and circle all the adverbs and adjectives.

Then examine each one and see whether it accurately and concisely conveys your intended meaning. It proved to be very hard to overturn Plessy v. Better: It proved to be difficult to overturn Plessy v.

In recent years the Electoral College has become very controversial. English Language Learners Definition of qualifier. Get Word of the Day daily email! Test Your Vocabulary. Test your visual vocabulary with our question challenge!

Love words? Need even more definitions? Just between us: it's complicated. Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. Although sometimes claims are phrased to take a firm stance on a topic, other times it is necessary or preferable to use what is known as hedging—or qualifying—language. Hedging allows writers and speakers to express their opinion cautiously, suggesting that there may be exceptions or circumstances under which the opinion does not apply.

The hedging here can be useful in that, although there is mostly a consensus in the scientific community that global warming exists and humans are a major contributor to it, there is some dissent. Depending on your writing style as well as the ideas you are trying to express, you will need to carefully select the qualifying language that is most appropriate to use.

Then you won't even need the qualifiers, because the imagery or the argument will be painted much more thoroughly for the reader. The famous writing book by William Strunk Jr.

White has more strict advice:. Qualifiers seem to work like adverbs—and they'll even be in the dictionary listed as such—but they differ slightly from your basic adverb. Thomas P. Klammer and Muriel R. Schulz explained:. Actively scan device characteristics for identification.

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