Amazing adverbs

 

 

Adverbs are used in academic texts in two important ways.

 

1) To modify verbs or adjectives:

 

Reasonably good data is only available for the last thirty years

 

Decomposition eventually ceases in modern landfills

 

2) Individually, often at the start of a sentence, to introduce new points or link back to a previous idea:

 

Currently, the earth's atmosphere appears to be ...

 

Alternatively, the use of non-conventional renewable energy ...

 

There are three main groups of adverbs used in the first case:

 

a) Adverbs of time

 

The previously published report ...

 

b) Adverbs of degree

 

The argument was significantly refined ...

 

c) Adverbs of manner

 

Historically speaking ...

 

In the second case, at the start of sentences, writers must be careful not to use adverbs which reflect the writer's own opinions e.g. luckily, happily, sadly.

 

The following are usually followed by a comma at the start of a sentence:

 

Recently, there has been a marked trend ...

 

Increasingly, women are starting families ...

 

Originally, tea was drunk from small bowls ...

 

Currently, over five thousand people work ...

 

Traditionally the costume was worn on feast days ...

 

Other common adverbs used in this way are:

 

Clearly

 

Obviously

 

Alternatively

 

Similarly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A simple way to get the best mark for your exam essays

When you have to write essays in exams, time is vital. But students often make the mistake of not fully answering the question given, and so they lose marks. This is because they ignore part of the question.

Essay titles often have two parts e.g.

'How can schools make better use of IT (information technology)? Are there any drawbacks to using IT in the classroom?'

Before starting to write, you must decide how many words to give to each part. In this case you may decide that the first part (How ...) is more important and should have 60% of your answer, so the second part (Are there ...) would get 40%.

If you are writing 1,500 words the introduction and conclusion should take about 20%, which is 300 words, leaving 1,200 for the main body. The first part would then have about 700 words, and the second part 500.

If you do not organise your answer in this way you may find you have written too much for the first part, and do not have enough time to answer the second part properly.

The same principle applies to essays done for coursework: even if there is less time pressure it is still important to balance your answer in this way.