EXPRESSING EMPHASIS:

In order to show clearly what you think is important but at the same time to avoid using "I" too much remember words like these:

Adjectives: main, crucial, important, significant, essential, key

Nouns: focus, element, concept, theory, aspect, part, idea, point, argument, discussion, debate

Verbs: to emphasise, to summarise, to focus, to highlight

Examples:

• The key aspect of this argument is…
• The most crucial point made so far is…
• To summarise the essential elements of the discussion up to this point…
• It is important to emphasise that…
• The significant point here is that…

EXPRESSING DEGREES OF CERTAINTY:

It is important to make it clear that you do not know everything about a subject that is to avoid over-generalising. For example, if you write:

• Everybody gets up at 7am

It is obviously not correct as some but not all people get up at 7am. A better sentence would be:

• Some people get up at 7am

The words to AVOID are: always, never, all, everybody.

In order to express degrees of certainty – also sometimes called hedging – consider using any of the following:

The words to USE are:

• possibly, perhaps;
  
• often, sometimes, occasionally, rarely;
  
• can, may, could, might.