How to be a critical reader

HEDGING → The use of hedging helps writers to avoid expressing opinions as facts and to speculate or express caution in the statements they make. When writers ‘hedge’,
they use the following kinds of words and any others which create distance between the writer and the opinion and show that the writer knows there may be people who have other opinions:
• may, could, can, seem, appear
• probably, possibly, clearly, undoubtedly
• likely, probable, possible
• likelihood, possibility, probability
• quite, sometimes.