Unit 5 · Academic Discourse & Scholarly Voice · Lesson 22
Citing & Positioning
Reporting verbs and the rhetoric of attribution
By the end of this lesson
You'll be able to:
- use reporting verbs that signal stance, not just attribution
- distinguish summary, paraphrase, quotation and synthesis precisely
- place a source where it does argumentative work, not where you found it
- spot when a citation is decoration and when it earns its place
Stage 1
Warm-up
Here's what you'll do
Three sentences citing the same study. Which one tells you the writer's stance?
You produce
You rank for stance-clarity and defend.
- 'Smith (2021) discusses screen time and attention.'
- 'Smith (2021) overstates the case, citing correlational data as if it were causal.'
- 'Smith (2021) usefully reframes the screen-time debate, though the causal claim outruns the evidence.'
Group extension (optional)
Pairs argue; group picks the line that does most stance-work.
Stage 2
Language Discovery
Here's what you'll do
Four reporting moves, four stances.
You produce
You label each verb's stance.
Reporting verbs as stance
Every reporting verb carries a stance toward the source. 'Note' is neutral; 'overstate' is critical; 'demonstrate' is endorsing. Notice the verb-stance map.
Neutral: Smith (2021) reports that screen time correlates with reduced attention scores.
Endorsing: Smith (2021) demonstrates a robust correlation between screen time and attention scores across age cohorts.
Cautious positioning: Smith (2021) argues that the correlation reflects a causal relationship.
Critical: Smith (2021) claims a causal relationship that the correlational design cannot support.
The rule you'll arrive at
Reporting verbs at C2: (a) NEUTRAL ATTRIBUTION ('reports', 'notes', 'observes'); (b) ENDORSING ('demonstrates', 'establishes', 'shows convincingly'); (c) CAUTIOUSLY POSITIONING ('suggests', 'argues', 'maintains'); (d) CRITICAL ('overstates', 'claims', 'asserts without sufficient ground', 'concedes'). The choice signals where YOU stand before any explicit critique.
Try three
1. Rewrite as ENDORSING: 'Carter (2019) talks about the procedural opacity variable.'
Reveal
'Carter (2019) establishes procedural opacity as a distinct and measurable variable.'
2. Rewrite as CRITICAL: 'Lin and Park (2022) argue that culture explains the trust decline.'
Reveal
'Lin and Park (2022) attribute the trust decline to culture, leaning on a measure of culture that the paper itself acknowledges as imprecise.'
3. Rewrite as CAUTIOUSLY POSITIONING: 'The paper says inequality matters.'
Reveal
'The paper argues that inequality remains a necessary, if not sufficient, condition.'
Stage 3
Vocabulary in Use
Here's what you'll do
Six items for the rhetoric of attribution.
You produce
You match each to an article in your field.
to draw on (a source)
to use a source as an analytic resource
"I draw on Carter (2019) for the conceptual distinction between opacity and corruption."
to follow X (in arguing / against Y)
to align with one source while disagreeing with another
"I follow Carter in arguing for opacity, against Lin and Park."
to lean on (a source / a claim)
to rely heavily on, often more than the source can bear
"The argument leans heavily on a single dataset."
to qualify (a source's claim)
to accept the claim with named restrictions
"I qualify Smith's finding by restricting it to the under-25 cohort."
in conversation with (the literature)
treating sources as interlocutors rather than props
"The paper is in conversation with three distinct strands of the literature."
to misattribute (a position to)
to assign a view incorrectly to a source
"The reviewer misattributes a deterministic claim to me that I never made."
Guided practice
1. Fill: 'I ____ ____ Carter (2019) for the conceptual distinction.' (2 words)
Reveal
draw on
2. Fill: 'The argument ____ ____ on a single dataset.' (2 words)
Reveal
leans heavily
3. Fill: 'The paper is ____ ____ ____ ____ the literature.' (4 words)
Reveal
in conversation with the
Stage 4
Speaking Task
Here's what you'll do
Article response: 4 minutes, three sources, three different stances.
You produce
You discuss; teacher tracks every reporting verb you use.
Teacher gives you a topic (e.g. screen time and attention). You discuss it for 4 minutes, naming at least THREE sources (real or invented) and citing each with a DIFFERENT reporting stance (one endorsing, one cautious, one critical). Teacher tracks every reporting verb and gives feedback on stance-precision.
Use these
Prompts
- · Topic: AI and creative work.
- · Topic: urban density and mental health.
- · Topic: the four-day week.
Group extension (optional)
In pairs, peer counts reporting verbs and rates stance discrimination.
Stage 5
Reading / Listening Input
Here's what you'll do
A 240-word literature review paragraph. Every citation does work.
You produce
Five close-reading calls.
Reading — Excerpt — literature review on procedural opacity and trust
The literature on declining institutional trust divides, roughly, along three lines. The first, drawing primarily on the structural-inequality tradition (Putnam 2007; Wilkinson and Pickett 2011), attributes the decline to widening income gaps and the breakdown of cross-class encounter. The second, in conversation with the political-culture literature (Lin and Park 2022), locates the cause in shifting cultural values around authority. The third, smaller line — to which this paper contributes — argues that institutions have themselves become more opaque (Carter 2019; Adisa and Rao 2021), and that opacity does causal work distinct from inequality or culture. I follow Carter in distinguishing opacity from corruption, but qualify the claim by noting that Carter leans heavily on a single survey instrument whose construct validity I take up in Section 3. Lin and Park, in turn, misattribute to Carter a deterministic position he does not hold; in restoring the more cautious version of Carter's argument, the present paper aims to be in conversation with all three lines without collapsing the distinctions between them.
Comprehension
1. How does the writer position the paper among the three lines?
Reveal
Contributes to the third (opacity) without dismissing the other two.
2. Find a CAUTIOUSLY POSITIONING reporting move.
Reveal
'attributes the decline to…' / 'argues that institutions have themselves become more opaque.'
3. Find a CRITICAL reporting move.
Reveal
'Carter leans heavily on a single survey instrument…' / 'Lin and Park misattribute to Carter a deterministic position he does not hold.'
4. Where does the writer QUALIFY a source they otherwise follow?
Reveal
'I follow Carter… but qualify the claim by noting that Carter leans heavily on a single survey instrument.'
5. Why is this a contribution, not a tour?
Reveal
It positions the paper, takes specific issue with one prior reading, and treats the literature as interlocutors rather than as a reading list.
Stage 6
Analysis Task
Here's what you'll do
Find the stance map.
You produce
A short note placing each citation on a stance map (neutral / endorsing / cautious / critical).
List every citation in the paragraph. For each, name the writer's stance and give the textual cue. Then identify ONE citation that, if removed, would NOT weaken the paragraph — and defend the cut.
- · Which citation is doing most argumentative work?
- · Which citation is doing only positioning work?
- · Where could a less disciplined writer have over-cited?
Group extension (optional)
Pairs swap maps; group debates contested stances.
Stage 7
Communication Challenge
Here's what you'll do
Article response: 25 minutes to a 300-word response to a real paragraph from a real article.
You produce
A finished written response that uses three reporting stances.
Teacher provides a 200–300-word paragraph from a real article in a field you read. You + teacher discuss it for 5 minutes. You then write a 300-word response that: (a) summarises the paragraph fairly, (b) uses ONE endorsing reporting move, ONE cautious, ONE critical, (c) names what the paragraph leans on too heavily, (d) places the paragraph in conversation with one other source you know.
Five minutes silent reading and stance-mapping before writing.
Use these
Deliverable
300-word response + one sentence naming the stance you found hardest to defend.
Group extension (optional)
In groups of 3, peers exchange responses and identify each other's stances.
Stage 8
Exam Connection
Here's what you'll do
C2 Proficiency Writing Part 2 — essay with cited sources.
You produce
One reporting sentence at each stance, drafted live.
C2 Proficiency — Writing Part 2 (essay or article, 280–320 words)
Task: Examiners reward essays that ENGAGE sources with stance, rather than name-dropping them.
Strategy: Aim for one endorsing + one cautious + one critical citation across the piece, each in a different reporting voice.
Mini-task
Pick any topic. Invent one source. Write THREE sentences citing it: endorsing, cautious, critical. Aloud.
Stage 9
Writing / Production
Here's what you'll do
250 words. Three sources, three stances, one positioned argument.
You produce
A 250–280-word literature paragraph handed in.
Write a 250–280-word literature paragraph on a topic in your field. You MUST: (a) cite at least three sources (real or plausibly invented), (b) use at least three different reporting stances, (c) qualify at least one source you follow, (d) avoid 'states' and 'mentions' entirely, (e) use at least three target items.
Word count: 250–280 words
Must use
Stage 10
Reflection & Homework
Here's what you'll do
End of L22. Two questions, one prep.
You produce
Spoken 30-second reflection.
Reflection
- · Where in your past writing have you over-relied on 'states' and 'mentions'?
- · Which reporting stance do you avoid — and what would it cost to use it well?
Homework
Find one paragraph from an article you respect. Re-label every reporting verb and consider whether a sharper choice was available. Bring to Lesson 23.