thesis whisperer verb cheat sheet

Verb cheat sheet 2

This verb sheet was created by Carmen Blyth , owner of the Teacher Whisperer blog , who made it for her own thesis and kindly shared it with us.

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Two Great Academic Writing Cheat Sheets for Student Researchers

By Med Kharbach, PhD | Last Update: May 19, 2023

If you want to be a writer you must do two things above all others: Read a lot and write a lot. There is no way around these two things that I am aware of, no shortcut…If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time to write. Simple as that”(pp. 145-147)

I have already shared a wide variety of resources geared especially towards helping graduate students and student research enhance their academic writing including research methodology textbooks and academic writing guides . In this post I am adding two more resources:

1- Thesis Whisperer Verb Cheat Sheet

Verbs are judgmental. The verb you use to describe someone else’s work indicates your feeling about the quality of the work. For instance, “Mewburn (2010) argues…” is kinder than “Mewburn (2010) asserts…” (a scholar who asserts is not really a scholar at all). Choose your feeling, and then pick a verb from the list that fits your sentence. Or just scan the list for best fit. This is the list I made to put on my own wall – you may disagree with my categories. Feel free to change it to suit your style.

2- 70 Useful Sentences for Academic Writings

This is a wonderful compilation of some useful academic sentences to help you in your academic writing assignments. This hard work has been done by Luiz and shared on his website . I highly recommend Luiz’s list for any student researcher

Here is what Luiz said about this list :

Back in the late 90s, in the process of reading for my MA dissertation, I put together a collection of hundreds of sentence stems that I felt could help me with my academic writing later on. And they did. Immensely. After the course was over, I stacked my sentences away, but kept wondering if I could ever put them to good use and perhaps help other DELTA / Trinity / MA / PhD students who know exactly what they want to say, but might have trouble finding the best way to say it.

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Meet Med Kharbach, PhD

Dr. Med Kharbach is an influential voice in the global educational technology landscape, with an extensive background in educational studies and a decade-long experience as a K-12 teacher. Holding a Ph.D. from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Canada, he brings a unique perspective to the educational world by integrating his profound academic knowledge with his hands-on teaching experience. Dr. Kharbach's academic pursuits encompass curriculum studies, discourse analysis, language learning/teaching, language and identity, emerging literacies, educational technology, and research methodologies. His work has been presented at numerous national and international conferences and published in various esteemed academic journals.

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ABP Study and Research Guide

•  Planning your work
• Architecture
• Construction
• Landscape Architecture
• Urban Planning and Urban Design
• Architectural History and Urban and Cultural Heritage
• Buildings, Maps, Plans and GIS
• Google Scholar
• Indigenous Research Guides
• Standards, Statistics and Data
• Theses and Cultural Collections
•  Skills for searching
•  Evaluating what you find

Why reference?

Referencing styles.

• How do I reference collages/multiple images in one work
• What do I do if I need to cite something more than once?
• What do I put in an appendix?
• Using images you have created
• What do I do if I can't find the creator/author of an image?

Incorporating sources

•  Note taking and file naming
•  Creating your work
•  Participating and presenting
•  Working with copyrighted material

In your work at university you are expected to:

• acknowledge the authors and creators of the ideas and material that has informed your work, and
• show that you have used reputable sources of information. 

These acknowledgments are normally presented in the format of a particular referencing style.

If you fail to acknowledge the work of others correctly, you may be guilty of plagiarism, even if you have done so unintentionally. 

The University of Melbourne produces a wide range of resources to ensure that you understand the requirements of referencing, including: 

Academic integrity at the university of melbourne, referencing essentials, using sources (online module).

There are two recommended referencing styles in MSD/ABP. 

Chicago A (footnotes) APA (in text citations)

Make referencing easier - try using software like Endnote or Zotero

Referencing software

Using multiple photos

If you are using multiple images to make a collage or to add detail to your own work you will need to provide a reference for each image. 

For more information on referencing images, see the guidelines for Chicago A (footnotes) or APA .

In either style, your caption should explain or describe the image you have created, with the details of all the images you have used in creating it listed in the list of figures.

Using videos

including snippets from multiple videos you will need to provide a reference for each image/video clip. Include your list of references with or after the credits at the end of the video.

For information on citing videos see the guidelines for Chicago A (footnotes) or APA .

Citing one source multiple times in a paragraph

Sometimes you need to go into more detail about one particular source, and you may want to refer to it several times within one paragraph. This is perfectly fine. The most important thing is that the reader understands where the information came from. That could be   another citation, or a word or phrase that clearly refers back to the source you have already mentioned.

APA  

Jane Jacobs (1958, p.140) discusses the 'death' of Downtown, calling for planning that enables "an atmosphere of urbanity and exuberance". She states that  planners and designers should walk around the city to understand what is needed to make it thrive. More recently,  Perrone (2019) has analysed and commented on the article, demonstrating the continuing relevance of Jacobs' arguments. Jacobs (1958) strongly advocates for citizen-led design of the city, exhorting planners to be guided by the desires of citizens.

Chicago 

Jane Jacobs discusses the 'death' of Downtown, calling for planning that enables "an atmosphere of urbanity and exuberance". 1 She states that  planners and designers should walk around the city to understand what is needed to make it thrive. More recently,  Perrone has analysed and commented on the article, demonstrating the continuing relevance of Jacobs' arguments. 2 Jacobs strongly advocates for citizen-led design of the city, exhorting planners to be guided by the desires of citizens.  3

1. Jane Jacobs, "Downtown is for people", in  The Exploding Metropolis , 1st ed., eds. Editors of Fortune (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1958) 140.

2. Camilla Perrone, “‘Downtown Is for People’: The Street-Level Approach in Jane Jacobs’ Legacy and Its Resonance in the Planning Debate within the Complexity Theory of Cities,” Cities 91 (August 2019), pp.10–16, https://doi.org/10/gnhswx .

3. Jane Jacobs, "Downtown is for people".

What should I put in an appendix?

If a source is publicly available, you don't need to include it in an appendix. An appendix goes at the end of a paper, after the bibliography or reference list. The information contained is not essential - readers will still be able to understand your work without access to it. It serves to enhance the research. 

Only need to include if you want to refer to it and you want the reader to understand the context. Detailed information that would be too long/distracting in the main body and that isn't readily available to the reader.

Examples of what can go in an appendix:

•  'Dial Before You Dig' reports
•  Survey questions and responses
•  Interview transcripts or correspondance 
•  Raw data
•  Tables that you have compiled and are too large to include in your work but that you want to refer to

 Refer to information in an appendix or appendices in parentheses within the text.

eg.  Survey respondents were clearly in favour of increased bicycle infrastructure (see Appendix 1).    

Do I need to reference images/videos I have created?

Images and videos that you have created for a particular assessment  are considered an unpublished work. They should be treated as a figure, and labelled as the guidelines for the style direct.

For APA, add the words "own work" to the note under the image if you want to make it clear that you have created the image yourself.

For Chicago A, follow the guidelines  for captioning figures. 

What do I do if I can't find a creator/author for an image?

If you can't find the creator of an image, provide as much information as you can to allow your reader/viewer to identify it. The citation or footnote and the bibliography or reference list entry should begin with the title of the work, followed by the rest of the information required for citing.

The Chicago Manual of Style , section 14.79 covers what to do if there is no listed author.

The APA Style Blog  has an entry about missing information.

You can incorporate information from other sources into your own work using direct quotes, paraphrases and summaries.

A direct quote uses the exact words of another author. 

A paraphrase express another author's idea in your own words. 

A summary provides a short statement expressing the main point of another author's idea in your own words. 

Sheehan, N.W. (2011). Indigenous knowledge and respectful design: an evidence-based approach.  Design Issues   27 (4), 68-80. 

For some tips to help you rewrite the ideas of other authors in your own words, watch   Paraphrasing ideas in your writing . 

For more information about integrating sources in your writing, refer to using sources in assessments: voice in academic writing ..

In addition to drawing on a range of academic sources in your work, it's important to include your own thoughts and ideas. 

You should use 'your voice' in your academic writing to indicate to readers which ideas are yours, and provide your critical evaluation of the ideas of other authors. 

One way to express your own voice is to directly praise an author's work (e.g. by describing it as 'influential'). 

Alternatively, you could note the limitations of a piece of work (e.g. 'the application of this approach ... in other contexts may meet different challenges'). 

Sheehan, N.W. (2011). Indigenous knowledge and respectful design: an evidence-based approach.  Design Issues   27 (4), 68-80. 

Another option is to compare the findings of different authors, perhaps identifying which piece of work is more relevant to your topic. 

Keep in mind that the strength of your critical evaluation also depends on how you support your ideas with additional evidence or logical reasoning, not only on how you express your ideas . 

To discover more ways to distinguish your ideas from the ideas of other writers, refer to Critical literacy . 

For more ways to develop your own voice, refer to  voice in academic writing  and the thesis whisperer verb cheat sheet . , for a collection of many words and phrases that could be used to express your voice, refer to the following sections of the university of manchester academic phrasebank :, being critical, referring to sources.

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Verb cheat sheet

Author: Thesis Whisperer 

A list of verbs and that show judgement about the topic. Great for EAL learners as well as upper-level undergrads and graduate students who are looking for ways to develop their academic vocabulary and find a more scholarly voice.

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The Thesis Whisperer is written by Professor Inger Mewburn, director of researcher development at The Australian National University . New posts on the first Wednesday of the month. Subscribe by email below. Visit the About page to find out more about me, my podcasts and books. I'm on most social media platforms as @thesiswhisperer. The best places to talk to me are LinkedIn , Mastodon and Threads.

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