LibGuides: Academic Writing Skills Guide: Reporting Verbs

Why Reporting Verbs Matter

Academic writing in college often requires you to use multiple information sources and to evaluate the quality of the ideas from these sources; one way of doing this is to use reporting verbs.

These verbs can help to show whether you agree or disagree with the author, reflecting your own attitudes to the information you are using and allowing you to voice your opinions better in your assignments.

Using reporting verbs also helps to develop your critical thinking skills, demonstrate your understanding of the material and improve your grades.

Reporting verbs can be used to indicate:

the original author’s personal viewpoint
your viewpoint regarding what the author says
the author’s viewpoint regarding research from other authors

When including a quotation or paraphrase in your writing, reference the source and add a verb that describes the way in which the idea is expressed by the author. When looking to indicate your own opinion about the source material, your choice of reporting verb can also show the reader how you feel about the research you are citing and the level of certainty or caution you attach to it. You can report your belief that you agree with the author(s), you are sceptical of or disagree with the author(s) or take a cautious/neutral attitude (that is, neither substantially agree or disagree).

Generally speaking, you should be focusing your attention on up-to-date material so use the present tense for your reporting verbs. However, if reporting on the results of past research or if you are presenting the development of ideas in a chronological context, you may use the past tense for older sources if relevant.

By widening your vocabulary and developing a bank of words to help introduce information from your sources, you can find more ways to express your opinion when reporting information. Knowing the verbs is one thing but knowing how to use them correctly is another. Reporting verbs fit into different sentence patterns – make sure that you check how a particular verb is generally used in sentences.

Below is a selection of reporting verbs to incorporate into your writing – as you will see, some verbs can be used in more than one instance.

accepts	acknowledges	admits	advocates	affirms	agrees
allows	analyses	applauds	approves	argues	assents
asserts	attests	believes	claims	clarifies	concedes
concludes	concurs	confirms	congratulates	considers	contends
declares	defends	defines	demonstrates	elucidates	emphasises
endorses	establishes	evidences	explains	extols	finds
grants	highlights	holds	identifies	illuminates	illustrates
indicates	insists	maintains	observes	offers	outlines
persuades	points out	praises	proclaims	proposes	proves
qualifies	reasons	recognises	recommends	refutes	relates
reveals	shows	stresses	supports	theorises	uncovers
upholds	verifies	warrants

accepts	according to	acknowledges	adds	advises	agrees
appears	argues	articulates	asserts	assumes	assures
believes	challenges	claims	clarifies	comments	concludes
concurs	confirms	considers	contends	conveys	critiques
declares	defines	demonstrates	describes	details	determines
discovers	discusses	emphasises	encourages	establishes	examines
explains	explores	expresses	feels	finds	focuses on
goes on to say that	highlights	holds	hypothesises	identifies	illustrates
implies	indicates	infers	informs	interprets	intimates
justifies	knows	maintains	makes clear	mentions	moots
notes	observes	outlines	points out/to	posits (the view that)	postulates
presents	professes	proposes	proves	questions the view that	quotes that
realises	reasons	recognises	recommends	records	regards
relates	remarks	reminds	reports	reveals	says
seems	sees	shows	speculates	states	studies
subscribes to	suggests	takes into consideration	thinks	upholds	uses
views	writes

alludes to	analyses	asks	assesses	assumes	believes
concludes	considers	examines	finds	implies	insinuates
observes	predicts	proposes	reveals	shows	speculates
suggests	supposes

adds	clarifies	concurs	continues	declares	explores
insists	maintains	persists	proceeds	states further	underscores

accuses	alleges	apologises	argues	assaults	asserts
assumes	attacks	believes	belittles	bemoans	challenges
charges	claims	comments	complains	condemns	confuses
conjectures	contends	contests	contradicts	counters the view that	criticises
critiques	debates	denies	deplores	deprecates	derides
differs	disagrees	discards	disclaims	discounts	dismisses
disputes	disregards	dissents	doubts	generalises	guesses
hopes	ignores	insists	intimates	justifies	laments
maintains	negates	objects to	opposes	questions	rebuts
refutes	rejects	speculates	supposes	surmises	warns
wonders

advises	advocates	alleges	asserts	assumes	claims
finds	figures	gathers	hypothesises	implies	indicates
infers	intimates	observes	posits	postulates	presumes
proposes	recommends	speculates	suggests	supposes	surmises
theorises	urges

alerts	applauds	argues	asserts	boasts	congratulates
contends	convinces	emphasises	engages	exhorts	extols
forbids	guarantees	insists	persuades	praises	proves
promises	reiterates	stresses	supports	threatens	underscores
upholds	warns

closes	concludes	confirms	decides	determines	discovers
emphasises	finds	finishes	infers	points to	proves
realises	recommends	reveals	shows	summarises	terminates

advocates	argues	asserts	considers	contends	disputes
feels	hypothesises	implies	maintains	opines	posits
proposes	reasons	theorises	thinks

answers

remarks

repeats

replies

responds

restates

There are many alternatives to these. Try the Review – Thesaurus function in Word to see synonyms for any word you are not sure about, or to avoid over-using a verb. However, avoid using words found in a thesaurus that are not part of your normal vocabulary or that you are not sure about, as you may misuse them.

Consult Academic Phrasebank for further helpful phraseology suitable for referring to sources.

Further Improve Your Writing

Signposting, Transitions & Linking Words/Phrases