Last check, at speed
Eight instruments. Match each to the slot it reaches.
What is being assessed
One question, asked of every claim
The assessment for this unit is a single question, asked by somebody else, of anything you say or write today: where did that come from, and how far does it go? Source and scope. If every empirical claim you make can answer both in one sentence, the unit has done its job.
Underneath that sit three things. Calibration: the claim is neither larger nor smaller than what you can defend. Placement: the hedge is on the part you are actually unsure about, not on the measurement you are sure of. Economy: one instrument per slot, and no slot filled twice.
And sound, which is quick and is the half most likely to undo the rest: hedges said flat and unstressed, intonation falling. A rising tone on a careful statement turns it into a question, and cancels every instrument you chose.
What is not being assessed is caution. A piece with a hedge in every clause scores no better than one with none, and usually worse, because both have the same defect — the reader cannot tell what you know. The target is a claim somebody could act on and could hold you to.
Three questions.
1. What is the single question?
2. Is more hedging better?
3. What can undo all of it out loud?
The whole unit on one card
Everything from Unit 33, in the order you will need it
| Move | Frame | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnose first | Which part of this am I actually unsure about? | Before reaching for a word. The wrong-slot hedge is invisible from the inside. |
| Fill scope and source | According to one study, in industrialised economies… | The two slots whose absence misleads. Fill them on every empirical claim. |
| Limit without weakening | Cities of this size tend to… | Tend to carries its own exceptions. Nothing goes in front of it. |
| One per slot | appear to have fallen by roughly four per cent | Across the slots, never within one. Two in a slot cancel. |
| Keep the author | On this evidence, X appears to… | Not |
| State what you know | The evaluation found a twenty per cent rise. | No hedge in front of something established. If you have the number, give the number. |
Four questions. Fast.
1. Which two slots mislead most when left bare?
2. What goes in front of tend to?
3. You are certain of the measurement and unsure whether it generalises. Where does the hedge go?
4. How many instruments in one slot?
The unit task
How the thirty minutes run. Six alone to prepare, sixteen in fours for the assessed discussion under the challenge rule, eight to finish the piece and record ninety seconds. Two portfolio pieces come out of this hour: the 360-word piece from Lesson 7, finished, and a recorded spoken position.
Stage 1 · Alone · 6 minutes · Prepare
One position on an environmental question, with the evidence you would actually cite: transport, energy, food, waste, water, land, building standards.
Six lines, and every empirical claim carries its scope and its source before anybody speaks.
- 1 · The position, with the scope attached in the sentence itself.
- 2 · Three claims it rests on. Beside each, the source and its kind — measured or modelled, one study or several.
- 3 · The confidence split: which part you hold firmly, which part you do not.
- 4 · The link you are taking on trust. Write it out now.
- 5 · One claim you expect to be challenged, and the one sentence you will source it with.
- 6 · What would change your mind, and whether that evidence exists.
Stage 2 · Fours · 16 minutes · The assessed discussion
Four positions, four minutes each. One speaker, three challengers, and the rule from Lesson 5 running throughout.
Three minutes to argue, one for the audit.
- Speaker (3 min): the position with its scope, the three claims with their sources, the confidence split, and the unchecked link.
- Challengers: where did that come from? and how far does that go? — at any point, on any claim. Answered in one sentence or withdrawn.
- Listener A audits placement: note any hedge that sits on something the speaker is plainly sure of, and any bare absolute.
- The one-minute audit: A reports the misplaced hedges and the absolutes; the group says which single claim it would most want a source for.
Stage 3 · Pairs · 8 minutes · Piece and recording
The 360-word piece goes into the portfolio in this stage, and so does ninety seconds of you speaking.
Four minutes on the piece, four on the recording.
- Read your partner’s piece with two pens: circle absolutes, underline stacks. Write both counts at the top.
- For every hedge left standing, ask once: is that the part they are unsure about? Mark the ones where it is not.
- Record ninety seconds: your position with its scope, one claim with its source, and the thing you are taking on trust.
- Play it back once and listen only to the intonation. If any sentence rises at the end, record it again — that single re-take does more than another written draft.
Where the unit landed
Four questions.
1. Could every claim answer where did that come from? in one sentence?
2. What did the placement audit find?
3. How many different instruments did you use today?
4. Compared with Lesson 1, what has changed?
Worth two minutes in your four. Go back to the two numbers each of you wrote in Lesson 1 — absolute claims made, and different instruments used — and say today’s alongside them. The second number is the one that matters: hedging is a taxonomy rather than a dial, and moving from one instrument to four is the whole distance this unit covers.
What you can do now
Three questions. Thirty seconds.
1. What does a hedge do?
2. What is the stacking rule?
3. How does an unhedged claim read to somebody who knows the field?
Next unit — Identity Under Pressure. This unit was about calibrating a claim downwards to fit what you actually know. The next one is about the grammar English keeps for the opposite case: not only did she stay, she stayed another eleven years · never before had anybody asked · rarely does a rule survive its first exception. Inversion — the most expensive emphasis device in the language, and therefore the most easily wasted.