Using ‘that’ to acknowledge sources

Posted by Pak Guru on March 29th, 2016 | 0 comments | acknowledging sources, bahwa, collocation, EAP, grammar, reporting verbs, research, vocabulary

A study conducted in 1965 identified that argument mapping leads to clearer writing.

Some reporting verbs require a ‘that’ clause, others do not:

• A study conducted in 1965 showed that argument mapping leads to clearer writing.
• A study conducted in 1965 identified improvements to writing following argument mapping.

Reporting verbs not followed by that are usually followed by a noun phrase. Unfortunately there is no strategy to determine which verbs require that and which do not. You just have to memorise them. The best way to acquire useful reporting verbs is by reading journal articles and academic text books. To get you started, here is a list of common reporting verbs followed by that:

admit	agree	argue	assume
believe	claim	conclude	consider
decide	deny	determine	discover
doubt	explain	hypothesize	imply
indicate	infer	maintain	prove
presume	reveal	show	state