From the room, last lesson
Six sentences collected during the presentations. Two are grammar. Four are correct English that said something the speaker did not intend.
Six sentences. Repair the two errors and re-aim the four.
1. The company admitted that its figures were the most accurate available. — this is the company’s own claim
2. The report revealed that the policy may not work. — the report speculates
3. They accused the council to ignore the consultation.
4. The researchers claimed that water expands when it freezes. — an established fact
5. She said me the figures had been checked twice.
6. The minister insisted that the scheme was working, and the opposition insisted that it was not. — one of these is a first statement
The finding
A default is not a neutral
Almost every learner reaches for said when they do not want to take a position, and treats it as the safe option. It is the commonest reporting verb in English and it is genuinely unmarked, so the reasoning looks sound.
It is not, and the reason is about the reader rather than the writer. A summary in which every claim arrives with the same verb gives the reader no guidance at all — so they supply it themselves, from whatever is left. And what is left is structure: which claim came first, which came last, which got two sentences and which got half of one. Readers weight the final claim heavily. They always have.
So a summary built entirely of said does have a stance. It is simply a stance you did not choose, produced by the order you happened to put things in. You have not avoided taking a position. You have delegated it to your own paragraph structure.
The same is true of backshift. Shifting everything is not neutral either; it applies the same small distance to every claim, including the ones you would sign. Uniform is not the same as impartial, and a uniform setting is usually just an unexamined one.
The repair is not more impressive verbs. It is to decide, claim by claim, what you actually think — established, disputed, unproven, damaging, self-serving — and then to mark it. That is more work than said, and it is the work.
Three questions.
1. What happens when every claim gets the same verb?
2. So what has the writer done?
3. What is the repair?
Three defaults and what they do
What each default costs
| Default | What it feels like | What it actually does |
|---|---|---|
| Every verb is said | Impartial | Hands the weighting to structure; the last claim wins by position rather than by merit |
| Backshift everything | Correct | Applies the same faint distance to every claim, including the ones you endorse |
| No agent | Objective | Removes the person who could be asked — Unit 22’s two-question test, failing |
The habit, and it is three questions per claim.
1 · Is it established, disputed or unproven? That chooses between noted / said / claimed / alleged.
2 · Does it cost the speaker anything? If yes and it is true, admitted or conceded. If it helps them, claimed or insisted.
3 · Is it still true now? If yes and you are content to say so, do not backshift.
Three questions, and the third one is the one nobody asks.
Use the word in capitals to form a word that fits the gap. All eight are from this unit’s vocabulary.
- The report questioned the of the survey data. RELY
- The claim was made without any at all. ATTRIBUTE
- Her account of the meeting was widely . DISPUTE
- The company issued a formal on Thursday. DENY
- The figures have not been verified. DEPEND
- The article contained several that were later corrected. ACCURATE
- His on being quoted in full delayed publication. INSIST
- The tone of the coverage was openly . SCEPTIC
Four questions.
1. A claim is well established and uncontroversial. Which verb?
2. A company states something that is true and embarrassing to it. Which?
3. A claim is disputed and helps the person making it. Which?
4. The arrangement being reported still stands, and you are content to say so. What do you do with the tense?
Marking each claim on purpose
Eight gaps. The sentence around each one tells you what the writer thinks of the claim.
The operator that no data had been lost, and has not published the review that would show it. It later that the system had been offline for eleven hours. A trade body that the outage had cost members two million euros, a figure it has not broken down. The regulator that the response had been slow, which the operator . The operator to publish a full account within six weeks, and for the disruption. As of today the system running normally.
Eight sentences. Seven need work; one is correct.
1. The minister admitted that the policy was working well. — the minister’s own claim
2. The study revealed that the effect might be smaller than reported.
3. They accused the operator to delay the announcement.
4. The regulator found that the response had been slow. — correct as written
5. She said the office was on the third floor. — it still is, and the reader may need to go there
6. He apologised the delay and promised publishing the review.
7. The company said me that no data had been lost.
8. The trade body confirmed that the outage had cost two million euros. — the figure is the body’s own and unbroken down
The same five claims, twice
Task card · Pairs · 10 minutes · Writing
Take five claims from a story — yours or your partner’s — and write the summary twice.
Version one leans towards the people making the claims. Version two leans away. Same five facts.
- You may change only two things: the reporting verbs, and whether each clause is backshifted.
- You may not add, remove or reorder a single claim.
- Read both versions aloud to another pair without saying which is which.
- Ask them: which one is fairer? Then tell them what you actually changed.
What this proves. If two texts with identical facts and identical order can read as sympathetic and sceptical, then the verbs and the tenses were never neutral — and the version you write without thinking is one of the two.
Which version was called fairer
Two questions.
1. Could the other pair tell which version was which?
2. What does that mean for the version you write without deciding?
Decide, then mark
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. Why is a summary made entirely of said not neutral?
2. What are the three questions per claim?
Next. Three hundred and twenty words — a summary and a critique, in which every claim carries its source and every verb was chosen.