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229 

 

 
ELT FORUM 12 (3) (2023) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

 
http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 

 

An analysis of reporting verbs in master’s dissertations 

 

Shirley Eli Banini1, Ernest Kwesi Klu2, Ramos Asafo-Adjei3 
 
1Department of Communication Studies, University of Professional Studies Accra, Ghana 
2Department of English, Media Studies & Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences &     

Education, University of Venda, South Africa 
3Liberal Studies Department, Takoradi Technical University, Ghana 

 

Article Info 
________________ 
Article History: 
Received on 12 July 
2023 

Approved on 29 
November 2023 
Published on 30 
November 2023 

________________ 
Keywords: Academic 
writing; dissertation; 
reporting verbs; 
Hyland’s (2002) 
taxonomy 
____________________ 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________________ 

This study was purposed on analyzing reporting verbs in the Literature Review sections of 
some master’s dissertations in the field of Government and Leadership at the University of 

Professional Studies Accra (UPSA) in Ghana from the 2017/2018 to 2021/2022 academic 
year. The study sought to answer the main research question – what is the nature of the 

reporting verbs used in some master’s dissertations of students of the UPSA in the field of 
Government and Leadership? 20 dissertations were conveniently selected, and the 

Literature Review sections were analysed for reporting verbs using Hyland’s (2002) 

taxonomy which involves Research Acts, Cognition Acts and Discourse Acts as the 
analytical framework. These dissertations altogether contained 1,044,076 words. Results 

showed that students used various reporting verbs belonging to – Research Acts (observe, 
find), Cognition Acts (believe, conceptualize) and Discourse Acts (report, discuss) in their 

dissertations. Discourse Act reporting verbs were predominant compared to Cognition 
Acts and Research Acts, implying that the students used more of the reporting verbs 

associated with their mental processes. It is concluded that lecturers using English 

language and Research Methodology need to train students more in the use of reporting 
verbs in order to have their writing more impactful. 

 

  
Correspondence Address: p-ISSN 2252-6706 | e-ISSN 2721-4532 

Department of Communication Studies,  
University of Professional Studies, Accra,  
P.O. Box LG149, Accra, Ghana  
E-mail: shirley.banini@upsamail.edu.gh  

http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&&
http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&&


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INTRODUCTION 

Reporting verbs are terms that are employed specifically to describe the works of other authors or to 

indicate that a quotation or paraphrase has been made (Hyland, 2002; Thompson & Ye, 1991). 

Writing at the tertiary level requires certain conventions and specific writing styles which may seem 

discouraging for most students (Cullip & Diana Carol, 2003). Requirements for completing various 

tertiary programs vary; depending on the institution, students must produce research reports, 

research papers or dissertations by following well-defined formats. Producing dissertations requires 

students to use specific formats to construct and arrange their ideas carefully and coherently, 

particularly when integrating ideas from other sources which is an essential aspect of most academic 

writing (Jubhari, 2015). One important aspect of these writing tasks is the choice of suitable 

reporting verbs to produce coherent sentences in carefully structured arguments and to convey to 

readers explicitly and unambiguously what exactly the student writers have in mind. (Adika, 2015) 

indicates that reporting verbs indicate an attitude of writers towards the status of an author’s ideas, 

theories or research; or an evaluation of the evidential status of the sources being reviewed. Citation, 

according to Pecorari (2008, p. 6), is a reference to "citing something external to the citing text" and 

is a rhetorical device used in academic writing. Citation affords writers the opportunity to present 

the ideas of other authors as well as writers’ own through self-referencing (Hyland, 2002). 

Incidentally, reporting verbs are the vehicles through which such citations’ incorporation into 

academic writing can be achieved (Agbaglo & Mensah Bonsu, 2022). 

A way to comprehend the use of reporting verbs within the academic discourse community is 

through a study of how these verbs are actually used in context (Agbaglo, 2017; Bloch, 2010; (Loan 

& Pramoolsook, 2015; Manan & Noor, 2014; Yang, 2013). Researchers around the globe have paid 

particular attention to understanding students’ use of reporting verbs with the aim of improving such 

use in successful academic writing, especially in students’ dissertations and theses (Jafarigohar & 

Mohammadkhani, 2015; Jarkovská & Jarkovská, 2020; Lee et al., 2018; Liardét & Black, 2019; 

Manan & Noor, 2014; Ramoroka, 2014). Manan and Noor (2014), for instance, examined the 

effects of reporting verbs used in the dissertations of Malaysian students who earned their master's 

degrees in the ELS programme. Manan and Noor (2014) found that master's students were more 

familiar with the reporting verbs from the Research Acts category than those from the Cognition 

Acts and Discourse Acts categories and that they were used the most frequently. For their part, 

Jarkovská and Jarkovská (2020) used a corpus of master’s dissertation literature reviews written in 

English by Czech students of Economics and Management to evaluate the usage of reporting verbs 

in EFL learners’ writing. According to Jarkovská and Jarkovská (2020), the students had little 

understanding of how to employ the various types of reporting verbs and their evaluative purposes. 

 The evidence from existing research on students’ usage of reporting verbs worldwide is 

worrying. There aren't many studies that analyze how reporting verbs are used by students in the 

Ghanaian context, and the same is true specifically for how reporting verbs are employed in master's 

dissertations. Examining the use of reporting verbs in research articles written by lecturers in the 

English Department of the University of Cape Coast and examining the citation styles used in the 

Literature Review sections of master's dissertations published in the Economics discipline of the 

University of Ghana have been the main focuses of earlier research (Agbaglo, 2017; Agbaglo & 

Mensah Bonsu, 2022). Because government and leadership are currently not studied at other 

universities, the range of studies in students' usage of reporting verbs at the master's level is fairly 

constrained. This is a research space that needs to be filled through the study of a site such as the 

University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) in order to enhance understanding of students’ use 

of reporting verbs so that possible identified lapses could be addressed, and potential positive 

practices maintained or enhanced. This study was, followingly, purposed on analyzing the reporting 

verbs used in some master’s dissertations of students of the UPSA in the field of Government and 

Leadership. The study was directed by the main research question: What is the nature of the 

reporting verbs used in some master’s dissertations of students of the UPSA in the field of 

Government and Leadership? The following specific research interrogations guided the study: (1) 

What reporting verbs are used by the students and what is the frequency of such usage by the 

students? and (2) Which group of reporting verbs are used often by the students?  

There are three reasons why this investigation was conducted. First, one of the gaps in 

Ghana’s academic writing scene is addressed by this study. Although UPSA has long encouraged 

academic writing, particularly dissertation writing, there is hardly any published empirical research 

to show how students, particularly master’s students, employ reporting verbs in their dissertations. 



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Therefore, by disclosing the sorts of reporting verbs used by the students and the frequency of such 

usage by the students, as well as the group of reporting verbs frequently used by the students, this 

study offers a significant contribution. The second goal of this study is to act as a springboard for 

future research into other pertinent aspects of Ghanaian master’s students’ use of reporting verbs, 

such as the misuse of reporting verbs and the effects of such misuses on students’ chances of 

graduating. Last but not least, an understanding of the types, frequencies and group of reporting 

verbs frequently used by students will enable various stakeholders, including students, Research and 

English language lecturers, research supervisors and assessors, university managers and succeeding 

states to expand and implement appropriate policies to foster students’ academic writing. 

The Literature Review appears to be one of the most difficult jobs that students must 

complete for their dissertations, likely due to the difficulty involved in combining information from 

many sources to create a new work (Banini, 2021). Because this is where researchers establish 

connections between their own research and that of earlier authors, the Literature Review part of 

dissertations is crucial to the dissertation-writing process (Bruce, 1994). Zuber-Skerritt (2003), citing 

Bruce (1994), explain that the Literature Review is both a process and a final output. Bruce claims 

that when producing a literature review, researchers are looking at earlier works in the subject, 

posing a problem, solving it, and contrasting their answers to those of other researchers. Bruce 

claims that it also comprises a report, a list, a search, a survey, a learning tool, and a research 

facilitator. The process of conducting a literature review often includes the creation of a dissertation 

chapter. One phase in this process is choosing relevant papers (both published and unpublished) on 

the topic. Such documents are prepared from a perspective intended to achieve a particular goal or 

to represent a particular viewpoint of the nature of the subject and how it should be explored. They 

include information, ideas, data and evidence. 

Bitchener (2010) mentions the goal of the dissertation’s literature review section which is to 

give a thorough account of the background literature pertinent to the setting in which a study is 

conducted; this serves as an argument, a case or a justification for a study. According to Bitchener 

(2010), there are seven communicational purposes of the literature review: an examination of the 

background and contextual material found in summaries and syn-dissertations from the non-

research literature, a review of the theoretical viewpoints that support or notify a research effort, a 

review of the research literature relevant to one’s subject and a critique of earlier works. The other 

tasks include identifying information gaps or research weaknesses, arguing why the gap was critical 

and big enough to be filled and outlines the plan and carry out of the research. Writers can choose to 

give Literature Review chapters their own names or include them in other chapters (Swales & 

Lindemann, 2002); researchers present their knowledge and expertise, which are based on earlier 

research in the topic or discipline. The legitimacy of the researcher’s results is firmly confirmed by 

demonstrating such linkages and relations (Banini, 2021). Given the importance of this chapter to 

students’ research and dissertation writing, it is clear from the present discourse that the Literature 

Review of dissertations is entangled and embedded with technical nuances. This chapter, 

consequently, requires great skill and tact on the part of students to be able to execute.  

 

Citation and meaning 

Thompson and Ye (1991) mention that student writers frequently name sources without expressing 

their opinions on those sources. From a quantitative standpoint, writers frequently over or under-cite 

sources. From a qualitative standpoint, because they are required to acknowledge sources, student 

writers frequently utilize citations in order to adhere to English language academic traditions. 

Student writers place more emphasis on the formatting of citations, emphasizing proper grammar, 

spelling and overall ‘display’ of citations, to the neglect of practical function of citations in texts 

(Jalilifar, 2012; Thompson & Tribble, 2001).  

Citations should include reporting verbs (Loan & Pramoolsook, 2015). In order to show how 

they feel about the given information, student writers must choose the proper reporting verbs 

(Yeganeh & Boghayeri, 2015). An original method of signal evaluation is the use of appropriate 

reporting verbs. Evaluation is described as “the conveying of the writer’s view of the status of the 

information in her text” (Thompson & Ye, 1991, p. 367). A reporting verb is one of the most 

obvious indicators of the presence of evaluation, according to (Thompson & Ye, 1991). Similar to 

this, Hunston (1995, p.135) asserts that “the reporting verb is, in fact, capable of construing complex 

layers of evaluation”. For a very long time, the issue of how to select proper reporting verbs has 



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piqued the interest of researchers. As (Hyland, 2002, p. 130) notes, reporting verbs might have a 

variety of purposes: 

The choice of a specific reporting verb is a delicate one because it is essential to 

both properly situate one’s work and communicate with peers, to interact with 

coworkers and to appeal to the epistemological and interactive understandings 

of one’s community. By choosing a specific verb, the writer establishes a specific 

link with the reader and the reported text as well as indicating the reported voice 

and evoking exact meaning and judgment. This has a significant impact on a 

reader’s readiness to accept a writer’s arguments and conclusions.  

A Reporting verb chosen by an author therefore conveys not just clear lexical meaning but 

also implied meaning in the text and discloses the author’s perspective on the cited data (Gil-Salom 

& Soler-Monreal, 2014). This supports the assertion that students’ success in the production of the 

Literature Review parts of their dissertations depends on sensitivity and competence with regard to 

the intricacies of reporting verbs (Hyland, 2002). 

 

Role of reporting verbs in academic discourse   

Reporting verbs are one of the key linguistic components that academic writers must incorporate 

into their writings to evaluate the sources they utilize and to be critical of such sources (Kwon et al., 

2018). Again (Hyland, 2002, p. 115) discusses the significance of “reporting” in academic texts thus: 

 

Even the most unique work incorporates and conveys ideas, thoughts, research findings and 

hypotheses from other sources; in fact, if it didn’t, it wouldn’t likely be accepted for 

publication. Simply defined, academic writing relies on its ability to integrate recent findings 

into a broader discipline narrative. 

The author emphasizes that academic papers must incorporate materials from a variety of 

sources, and it is crucial to evaluate the ideas that are employed. To persuade readers and to 

demonstrate the importance and validity of the work being discussed, writers often include 

references to earlier research conducted by other authors. A writer accomplishes this by expressing 

whether they believe another writer’s assertion to be true, false or neutral. The employment of 

reporting verbs is a crucial instrument in this. Hyland (2002) notes that it is crucial to acknowledge 

other authors while creating knowledge, and the way writers react to it or take a position is just as 

significant as the knowledge itself. According to Hunston and Thompson (2000), the connections 

that authors make between their arguments and those of others frequently determine the rhetorical 

impact of a paper. Therefore, the choice of reporting verbs is crucial to establishing the credibility of 

both the writer and the assertions (Bloch, 2010). 

Reporting verbs can be used by writers to present, critique and contest the ideas and actions of 

other authors, which are crucial components of academic discourse. Thompson and Ye (1991) 

further point out that authors can refer to their own assertions and opinions as well as the assertions 

of others by using reporting verbs. According to McNamara (2013), reporting verbs reflect how 

authors and presenters present, assess and challenge their assertions as well as articulate their own 

connected viewpoints. A variety of lexical tools are used by authors to establish the veracity of the 

reported statements, take a stand and communicate their opinions to the audience through the use of 

reporting verbs (Bloch, 2010; Hyland, 2002). It is evident, thus far, that reporting verbs are integral 

to academic writing or, more specifically, dissertation writing. Their importance is highlighted by 

their ability to engender coherent and scholarly espousal and integration of ideas by students in 

order to facilitate, as envisaged, quality research outputs.  

 

Analytical framework 

Hyland (2002) cataloguing of reporting verbs, which is separated into three distinct types depending 

on the sort of action they relate to, serves as the analytical foundation for this study. Figure 1 

illustrates these as Research Acts, Cognition Acts and Discourse Acts. Due to its popularity and 

suitability for evaluating reporting verbs, this framework was employed (Agbaglo, 2017; Banini, 

2021; Agbaglo & Mensah Bonsu, 2022). 



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 According to Hyland (2002), research acts are verbs that describe experimental action done 

in the real world. Such verbs are often found in explanations of discoveries or procedures and 

include observe, discover, notice, show, compute, assay, investigate, explore, and recover. Verbs like 

“believe”, “conceptualize”, “suspect”, “assume” and “view” are examples of cognition acts, which 

are verbs connected to the researcher’s mental processes. Verbs known as discourse acts are 

linguistic in nature and concentrate on the verbal expression of thought or inquiry. The verbs 

“ascribe”, “discuss”, “hypothesize”, “report” and “state” are a few of them. 

Hyland (2002) added evaluative functions of the reporting verbs to the process functions to 

further develop an earlier 2000 study. The reporting verbs were separated into evaluation categories 

within each of the process areas. Writers can use Factive verbs (such as demonstrate, create, show, 

solve or confirm) to demonstrate their agreement with authors’ outcomes or conclusions. Verbs used 

to describe procedures are not evaluated on their own. These verbs just provide an unbiased report 

on the study techniques. In Cognition Acts, reporting verbs approach evaluation in different ways. 

Writers can ascribe a certain attitude to the cited author by selecting one of four possibilities rather 

than overtly expressing a personal position on the information that is being reported. Writers can: 

(1) demonstrate a favorable attitude toward the reported information by using reporting verbs like 

“agree”, “concur”, “hold”, “know” or “understand” as a method to acknowledge that the 

information is accurate, (2) hesitantly approach the reported knowledge by employing phrasal verbs 

like “believe”, “doubt”, “speculate”, “suppose” and “suspect”,  (3) take a critical stance against the 

reported facts by utilizing reporting verbs such as “disagree”, “dispute” and “not think” and (4) 

maintain a neutral attitude regarding the reported information by using reporting verbs such as 

“picture”, “conceive”, “anticipate” and “reflect”.  

Discourse Acts reporting verbs give writers the option of taking ownership of their 

interpretation of the information by expressing their doubt or confidence in the accuracy of the 

statements reported, or they can qualify the author (Hyland, 2002). The first category of discourse 

verbs, which directly reflect writers' thoughts, includes the subcategories of doubt and assurance. 

Doubt reporting verbs also fall under the categories of tentative reporting verbs (such as postulate, 

indicate, intimate, and imply) and critical reporting verbs (such as avoid, exaggerate, not account, 

and not make point). Assurance reporting verbs have two main functions, as opposed to Doubt 

verbs. First off, they are non-Factive reporting verbs that can be employed to describe the author’s 

stance objectively. In this context, verbs like “state”, “describe”, “discuss”, “report”, “answer”, 

“define” and “summarize” are utilized. The verbs “argue”, “affirm”, “explain”, “note”, “point out” 

and “claim” are examples of Assurance reporting verbs (Factive Assurance reporting verbs) that 

writers may employ to support their opinions. The final division of Discourse Acts verbs is 

Counters, which permits writers to deflect criticism or reservations by attributing them to the 

original author rather than accepting ownership of the assessment. Verbs like “deny”, “critique”, 

“challenge”, “attack”, “question”, “attack” and “rule out” are examples of this type. Figure 1 

depicts the three acts of reporting verbs and their various sub-classifications. 

 

Figure 1. The three acts of reporting verbs and their various sub-classifications (Hyland, 2002) 

 

 

 

 



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METHODS 

Population and sampling 

The population was all postgraduate dissertations written by students of the UPSA. The target 

population was all dissertations written by students of Government and Leadership at the UPSA 

from the 2017/2018 to 2021/2022 academic years. This period was selected because the researchers 

wanted to obtain current reporting verb application practices on the part of the student authors to 

inform policy and adult practices in the domain of academic writing. In addition, Government and 

Leadership – a crucial programme in the UPSA – has not received the required attention in respect 

of its students’ use of reporting verbs in their dissertations. One dissertation from each year was 

conveniently selected from the University’s central library, and their respective Literature Review 

sections were purposively selected. The Literature Review sections were chosen because this is the 

main section of dissertation writing where reporting verbs are used predominantly to indicate 

writers’ stance and to generate arguments (Soler-Monreal & Gil-Salom, 2011; Thompson, 2005). 

The Literature Review section also combines and synthesize works from a variety of study fields, 

assesses the current strength of the evidence for a particular viewpoint, identifies gaps in the 

literature, and recommends areas that need more investigation (Hartley, 2008). 

 

Study design 

For this study, a straightforward case study methodology was used (Creswell, 2013; Crossman, 

2019) because it fosters a knowledge of social life through the study of specific target populations. 

An extended time of in-depth analysis of a particular person, programme, or event is provided 

through a case study, a research technique. The phrase "triangulated research strategy" is frequently 

used to describe it. It is a study technique based on an empirical investigation that looks at a 

phenomenon in its actual setting, per the description (Restivo & Apostolidis, 2019).  

The use of a case study is appropriate because the goal of this investigation was to analyse 

reporting verbs in the Literature Review portions of several master's dissertations in the area of 

government and leadership. The following research questions served as the direction for the study, 

which involved numerous individuals at a single location: What reporting verbs are used by the 

students and what is the frequency of such usage by the students? 

Which group of reporting verbs are used often by the students?The interpretivist paradigm 

influenced this research since it concentrated on how students understood and made meaning while 

constructing texts in an academic discourse community. Realisation and comprehension are built 

through social interactions (Pulla & Carter, 2018). Myers (2009) asserts that the core tenet of 

interpretive scholars is that reality (whether it be preset or socially constructed) can only be 

understood through social constructions like language, consciousness, and shared meanings. 

 

Data collection Procedures 

The lead researcher carefully followed the ethical guidelines to get clearance and approval for this 

investigation. The primary investigator requested approval from UPSA's School of Graduate Studies 

and the university's librarian, assuring them that the study posed no risk to the participants and 

would instead help them in their academic careers. By not reporting the names of the students who 

authored the dissertations, their rights to confidentiality and anonymity were guaranteed. The 

literature review sections of the theses were extracted and coded. Codes such as LT 1, LT 2, LT 3 

were created to ensure anonymity of the theses writers. The lead researcher sourced one dissertation 

each from the 2017/2018 to 2021/2022 academic years from the repository at the University’s 

library based on those that were readily available. Therefore, a total of 20 dissertations were 

obtained and used for this enquiry. This number was deemed sufficient because the Literature 

Review sections were considered to contain enough data to answer this enquiry’s research questions.  

 

Data analysis  

According to Mugenda & Mugenda (1999), fieldwork-related raw data is challenging to analyse and 

necessitates data management. In data management, assumptions and extrapolations are made 

based on the information acquired during an experiment or survey (Creswell, 2007). A checklist was 

used to analyse the use of reporting verbs in the master's dissertations of UPSA students studying 

leadership and government. Hyland (2002) cataloguing of reporting verbs, which is separated into 

three distinct types depending on the sort of action they relate to, served as the analytical foundation 



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for this study. In specificity, Hyland’s three categories of reporting verbs: research acts, cognition 

acts, and discourse acts underpinned the researchers’ checklist which was used to identify the groups 

and roles of the reporting verbs in this enquiry. The best tool for an investigation like this one is the 

checklist. The explanation is that it can direct the researcher as to which crucial elements or traits 

should be highlighted (Gay et al., 2012). 

The researchers ensured that all the verbs chosen for this study were used for citation since 

verbs like report, claim and state could function as nouns in particular contexts (Agbaglo & Mensah 

Bonsu, 2022; (Swales, 1990). The Literature Review sections of these dissertations were 

photocopied, scanned as a portable document format and converted into searchable Word 2019. 

Word 2019 was used to count the total number of pages, word count, line count, paragraph count, 

character count, and storage size.  

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

The data were then converted from.doc to.txt, which is a plain text format for AntConc 3.5.8 

processing (Anthony, 2020), because of its widespread use in the field of reporting verbs research 

(Agbaglo & Mensah Bonsu, 2022; Loan & Pramoolsook, 2015; Un-udom & Un-udom, 2020). Using 

AntConc 3.5.8, the reporting verbs used by the students were detected, together with how frequently 

they were used. A tally score was utilised to determine which category of reporting verb a word used 

falls within using simple frequencies [modes] and percentages. Table 1 provides a summary of the 

characteristics of the data studied. 

 

Table 1. Information on dissertations used for the study. 

Description 
Academic Year 

Total 
2017/2018 2018/2019 2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022 

No. of Pages 116 96 96 176 140 624 

Word Count 30576 30388 26364 58520 36388 182236 

Line Count 1452 1440 9148 2776 1728 16544 

Paragraph Count 408 404 1144 780 484 3220 

Character Count 174292 173216 155556 333584 207428 1044076 

Storage Size (kb) 1080 1456 1316 2508 1080 7440 

Source: Field work (2023) 

 

Reporting verbs by the students and frequency of use  

Universally, the reporting verbs used by the students and the frequency of such uses are crucial to 

enhancing and understanding students’ usage of reporting verbs in their dissertations. Therefore, this 

domain was investigated; the outcomes are shown in Table 2. Research Acts Findings Factive 

(RAFF), Research Acts Findings Counter-Factive (RAFCF), Research Acts Findings Non-Factive 

(RAFNF), and Cognition Acts Positive (CAP) are the acronyms used. Also, CAC (Cognition Acts 

Critical), CAT (Cognition Acts Tentative) CAN (Cognition Acts Neutral), DADT (Discourse Acts 

Doubt Tentative), DADC (Discourse Acts Doubt Critical), DAAF (Discourse Acts Assurance 

Factive), DANF (Discourse Acts Assurance Non Factive) and DAC (Discourse Acts Counters) are 

the other categorisations and their respective abbreviations (Hyland, 2002) used. Additionally, their 

corresponding frequencies and percentages are shown. 

 The results from Table 2 show that various reporting verbs were used by the students. Their 

use varied widely with some reporting verbs having a very high occurrence, and low occurrences for 

others. For instance, in the RAFF category, “show” and “demonstrate”, had high occurrences 

whereas “confirm” had low occurrence. In the RAFCF category, “fail“and “ignore had the highest 

rate of use whereas  “misunderstand” and “overlook” had the lowest. In the RAFNF “found”, 



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“find”, were used greatly as compared to “obtain”. In the CAP category, “support”, “know” had 

high occurrences, whereas agree, in this category was not used as much. In the CAT category 

“believe,” “doubt” was used and “suppose” had a rare occurrence. These are thus, the reporting 

verbs groups and their specific examples found to be predominantly used by the students. In 

addition, DADT (indicate, postulate), DAANF (define, report), DAAF (explain, argue), DAC 

(question, challenge), CAC (disagree, dispute) and CAN (reflect, conceptualize) also received 

attention in the Literature Review sections of the students’ dissertations (Table 2). With respect to 

their frequencies of usage, RAFF (show = 6.08%), RAFCF (fail = 1.16%), RAFNF (found, 8.39%), 

CAP (support, 6.51%) and CAT (believe. 1.74%) are the respective most used reporting verbs among 

the stated groups of reporting verbs. Furthermore, DADT (indicate, 2.03%), DADC (evade, 0.29%), 

DAANF (define, 1.59%), DAAF (explain, 4.49%), DAC (question,1.16%), CAC (disagree,1.59%) 

and CAN (reflect, 0.72%) are the most used reporting verbs in the various reporting verbs groups in 

the dissertations of the students. 

The following examples exhibit how some Research Acts verbs were used in the data 

examined: 

 

The research findings of Khan (1993) showed that with the growing interest in pragmatism, 

with its great emphasis on democratic values it had a considerable influence in bringing about 

a revolt against autocratic style of leadership. LT 10 
Stone et al. (2004) confirmed that servant leadership in comparison to transformational 

leadership, is predominantly a relations-oriented leadership, with the worker as its primary 

focus, while organisational outcomes are secondary. LT 17 

Ogbonna and Harris (2002) found that leadership is indirectly linked to performance, while the 

specific characteristics of an oranisational culture for example competitiveness are directly 

linked to it. LT 3 

Avolio et al. (2004) found a positive association between transformational leadership and 

organisational performance. LT 11 

 

In examples 1 and 2, showed and confirmed are used factively to present research findings. The 

choice of these verbs signifies the writers’ agreement with the research findings. In examples 3 and 4, 
found is also used to depict the findings of the research non-factively. This varies from Loan and 

Pramoolsook (2015) finding that students used verbs that relate both to findings and procedures in 

the construction of their literature review chapters. The choice of these non-factive verbs shows a 

concentration on merely reporting the general outcomes of research by other writers rather than 

highlighting the procedures involved and on persuading the reader. 

In addition, Cognition Acts verbs were used by the students. Hyland (2002) explains that 

Cognition Acts verbs show a writer’s mental processes, as he/she is able to assign an attribute to a 

cited author as having a positive, negative or neutral attitude. A positive attitude is perceived via the 

use of RVs such as agree, hold, support, understand; a neutral attitude is perceived via the use of RVs 

like picture, conceive, anticipate. Words such as believe, doubt and suppose are suggestive of a tentative 

attitude towards the information being reported. Representative examples that illustrate the use of 

Cognitive Acts verbs in some of the theses are presented below: 

 

Ngodo (2008) believes leadership is a reciprocal process of social influence, whereby leaders 

and subordinates influence each other so as to achieve organisational goals. LT 2 

Ali (2012) support the view of leadership as that kind of direction which a person can give a 

group of people under him in such a way that these will influence the behaviour of another 

individual, or group. LT 5 

Bhardwaj and Punia (2013) suggested that management performance is related to managers 

themselves than to positions and authority within the organisations. LT 8 

Cardoso (2018) agreed that as much as ‘strategy’ is an elusive concept, so also is ‘leadership’. 

LT3 

Govender (2016) disagrees that leadership is a process by which a person influences others in 

a team or organisation to achieve a certain common goal. LT 4 

The use of the verbs support (example 5) and agreed (example 6) and suggest (example 7) 

indicate a positive attitude and show support for and an acceptance of the information as 



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convincing. Verbs that show a critical stance to the information presented were seldom used; 

however, in example 9, the use of disagrees shows a strong refutation. This finding is in consonance 

with the suppositions of Agbaglo (2017), Hyland (2002) and Loan and Pramoolsook (2015) who 

also found very minimal or no use of verbs that show a critical viewpoint.  

Discourse Acts verbs which are used to report claims of other writers were also evident in the 

data. Illustrative details of Discourse Acts verbs used in the theses are: 

 

Vroom and Jago (2007) defined leadership as a process of motivating people to work together 

collectively to achieve great things. LT 1 

Lam (2014) explains that market risk describes the sensitivity of the value of positions to 

changes in market prices and/rates. LT 9 

Biondi (2020) indicate that when owned funds are managed by an entity, it natural that very 

few regulators operate and supervise them. LT 4 

In Example 10, define is used from the assurance non-factive category of verbs to just 

recognise information presented by a researcher, while still maintaining a neutral attitude. Explain 

(example 11) is used from the Assurance Factive category of Discourse Acts to support the argument 

the writer makes, whereas in example 12, indicate, which belongs in the doubt category of Discourse 

Acts, is used to tentatively present the information. In this way, the writer does not commit him or 

herself to any particular point of view. 

It is significant to note that apart from Hyland (2000) study which focused on native speakers, 

the other studies were on non-native speakers, but results produced are comparable. The nature of 

the discipline understudy (Government and Leadership) is equally technical; hence, writers make 

choices of some verbs more than others. This further supports the views of Hyland (2002) that there 

are noteworthy variances in the various disciplines with regard to reporting verb choices in writing. 

 

Table 2. Reporting verbs, category, their frequencies, and percentages 

Category Words Freq 
Percentage 

(%) 
Category Words Freq 

Percentage 

(%) 

RAFF 

Demonstrate 56 2.03 

DADT 

Postulate 16 0.58 

Establish 64 2.32 Hypothesize 4 0.14 

Show 168 6.08 Indicate 56 2.03 

Solve 56 2.03 Intimate 12 0.43 

Confirm 16 0.58 DADC Evade 8 0.29 

RAFCF 

Fail 32 1.16 

DAANF 

Describe 84 3.04 

Misunderstand 4 0.14 Discuss 64 2.32 

Ignore 16 0.58 Report 104 3.76 

Overlook 4 0.14 Answer 16 0.58 

RAFNF 

Find 120 4.34 Define 196 7.09 

Found 232 8.39 Summarize 4 0.14 

Identify 76 2.75 

DAAF 

Argue 116 4.20 

Observe 40 1.45 Explain 124 4.49 

Obtain 36 1.30 Note 60 2.17 

CAP 

Agree 32 1.16 Claim 20 0.72 

Hold 56 2.03 DAC Deny 4 0.14 

Know 160 5.79 

  

Challenge 24 0.87 

Think 40 1.45 Attack 8 0.29 

Understand 116 4.20 Question 32 1.16 



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Assume 48 1.74 CAC 

  

Disagree 44 1.59 

Support 180 6.51 Dispute 16 0.58 

Suggested 116 4.20 

CAN 

Reflect 20 0.72 

CAT 

Believe 48 1.74 
Conceptuali

ze 
4 0.14 

Doubt 8 0.29     

Suppose 4 0.14       

Source: Field work (2023) 

 

Group of reporting verbs employed in the theses 

The different terms from the corpus were put into groups using Hyland (2002) categorization as a 

reference in order to determine which categories of reporting verbs the student authors frequently 

utilized 

The frequencies and corresponding percentages of the categories were also examined. To 

paint a more complete picture of the frequency of usage of reporting verbs in the categories, the 

frequencies of the subcategories of reporting verbs used by the students were also examined. 

From Table 3, the reporting verbs from the Discourse Acts category had the highest usage of 

952 verbs contributing to 34.4% of the overall verbs; this was closely followed by the Research Acts 

of 920 occurrences representing 33.29%, and, in the Cognitive Acts category, there were 894 

occurrences representing 32.34%. Students used reporting verbs from all the categories. The 

differences in use of reporting verbs from various categories  appear to be related and reflects the 

students’ use of the reporting verbs, rather than idiomatic expressions. This observation agrees with 

Banini (2021). 

 

Table 3. Category, raw frequency, act category and percentage frequency of reporting verbs 

Category Frequency Act Category Frequency Percentage (%) 

 

RAFF 360     

RAFCF 56 Research 920 33.29  

RAFNF 504        

CAP 748     

CAT 61 Cognitive 894 32.34  

CAC 61     

CAN 24        

DADT 88     

DADC 8     

DAANF 468 Discourse 952 34.44  

DAAF 320     

DAC 68        

TOTAL 2766  2766 100  

Source: Field work (2023)  

 

Verbs that link to authors’ research activities or experimental techniques were chosen from 

the Research Acts category (Hyland, 2002; Loan & Pramoolsook, 2015). These verbs, according to 

Hyland (2002), are typically used in procedures (such as analyses, calculate, assay, explore, plot, and 

recover) or statements of findings (such as observe, discover, notice, and show). Specifically, in 



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respect of the Discourse Acts, it is evident that DAANF (468) was patronized the most by the 

students. DAAF (320), DADT (88), DAC (68) and DADC (8) followed in that order. With respect 

to the Research Acts category, RAFNF (504) ranked as the most used reporting verb by the students 

in the construction of the Literature Review sections and was followed by RAFF (360) and RAFCF 

(56). It may be explained that RAFNF verbs were mostly used because they usually occur in 

statements of research activity or procedures. Regarding the Cognitive Acts, the evidence suggests 

that the CAP (748) reporting verbs received the most attention. CAT (61) and CAC (61) which 

follow the CAP received equal patronage in the Literature Review sections and were followed by 

CAN (24), which were rarely used. The results here are in good agreement with earlier findings by 

(Agbaglo & Mensah Bonsu, 2022). 

According to the study, Findings and Assurance categories were utilized more frequently in 

evaluative categories than Research Acts and Discourse Acts, respectively. These incidents allow 

students to thematize their discussions. Although Hyland (2002) claims that students rarely use 

counter factive verbs, this study shows that students frequently use them when they utilize reporting 

verbs like “fail”, “misunderstand”, “ignore” and “overlook” in their dissertations. The results 

presented here disagree with those identified by Agbaglo (2017), Charles (2006) and Hyland (2002). 

This account possibly alludes to the disciplinary classification or the nature of the Government and 

Leadership discipline as comparable to Business Management and Administration, Accounting, 

Information Technology Studies and Communication. These fields of study entail testing hypotheses 

and debating claims, and researchers are likely to use defiant verbs to do so. This may likely account 

for the high prevalence of this group of reporting verbs identified in our investigation.  

In addition, it was discovered in this study that the factive verbs recorded instances of 320 

reporting verbs inside the Assurance category, as compared to Doubt and Counters, representing 

11.6% of all verbs and 33.6% with respect to the Act group. This finding indicates that assurance 

verbs are among the most frequently used categories, as found by Agbaglo (2017), Loan and 

Pramoolsook (2015). However, there were distinctions between factive and non-factive subgroups. 

While Agbaglo (2017) notes that non-factive assurance verbs are more frequently used, our study 

found a higher prevalence of factive assurance verbs. Discipline differences are responsible for this 

discrepancy in results: Agbaglo (2017) concentrated on English Studies, a Humanities field where 

reporting verbs are likely to be employed differently. The use of tentative verbs in citations is 

reported by Loan and Pramoolsook (2015), Agbaglo (2017)), Wen and Pramoolsook (2021), which 

were also observed in present investigation. 

Additionally, the Discourse Acts were the most often used category of reporting verbs in this 

study compared to the Research Acts and Cognition Acts. It reveals that writers remained objective 

in information presentation and is thus in line with the posits of Agbaglo (2017), Hyland (2002), 

Jafarigohar and Mohammadkhani (2015) and Yeganeh and Boghayeri (2015) who equally had 

results within a similar range. The nature of a discipline sometimes lends itself to the selection of 

choice reporting verbs, and writers tend to use some verbs more frequently than others. This high 

occurrence of the use of Discourse Acts verbs could be due to disciplinary variations, as found in 

earlier studies by Cullip and Diana Carol (2003), Jafarigohar and Mohammadkhani (2015) and 

Loan and Pramoolsook (2015). This finding, however, contrasts with that of Manan and Noor 

(2014), who discovered that the Discourse Acts verb group appeared in master’s dissertations the 

least frequently. According to Hyland (2002), soft disciplines are distinguished by the frequent use of 

reporting verbs and the seeming individuality of each discipline’s disciplinary practices. The 

Research Acts were the ones that were utilized the most frequently among the several instances of 

reporting verbs. In contrast, Manan and Noor found that “state” was the one that appeared the most 

in Discourse Acts. Finally, “know” and “support” had an occurrence of 160 and 180 respectively in 

relation to the verbs identified within the Cognition Acts. In an earlier study, Banini (2021) found 

that these verbs were also used in the writings by students in their dissertations, but the occurrences 

were not as prominent as observed in this study.   

 

 

CONCLUSION 

This study analysed reporting verbs in the Literature Review sections of master’s dissertations in the 

fields of Government and Leadership at the UPSA in Ghana from the 2017/2018 to 2021/2022 

academic year. The dissertations written in English were conveniently selected, and the Literature 

Review sections were extracted and analyzed for reporting verbs using text-based analysis software. 



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Hyland (2002) taxonomy constituted the analytical framework. Based on the findings of the study, 

the following main conclusions were drawn: First, the students made use of diverse reporting verbs 

in their dissertations. This is evidenced by the identification of reporting verbs and their various 

categories in their dissertations. Second, the RAFF category was the most frequently used reporting 

verb category by the students. This is based on an inquiry registering 6.08% for “show” which falls 

under this category. Third, the reporting verbs from the Discourse Acts category had the highest 

usage. There were 952 occurrences representing 34.4%. Moreover, the reporting verbs category that 

received the least citations in the students’ dissertations was the Cognition Acts category; there were 

892 occurrences representing 32.27%. In addition, in respect of the Discourse Acts, DAANF (117) 

was patronized the most by the students. With respect to the Research Acts category, RAFNF (504) 

ranked as the most used reporting verb by the students in the construction of the Literature Review 

sections. Also, regarding the Cognitive Acts, the CAP (748) reporting verbs received the most 

attention. These findings suggest the need for more research in the field of second language teaching 

and learning in universities in Ghana. 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

We are thankful to the University Librarian and Head of Department of Communications Studies, 

UPSA for partnership in this research.  

 

FUNDING STATEMENT 

The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article. 

 

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