Bob,
    What I mean by "hedging" is in progress thinking, but it would take us
in the direction of thinking like a scientist and being careful about
overgeneralizing and leaping to conclusions. It's common for a young
writer to write something like "Your parents will always be there for
you when you need them," which is, of course, not at all the case.
Sometimes I'll say something like "You know, there are people in this
program who are wards of the state for various reasons." It's not that
the statement is wrong or that they don't have something real and
substantial they want to talk about, but they lack experience thinking
about how they know what they know and perhaps don't know how to
qualify themselves as something less than an omniscient expert.
   I'm amused when the weather person says there's a fifty percent chance
of snow and then someone says later that they got it wrong.
   I think students don't always listen well to each other,and sometimes
that carries over to critical reading. They want to argue for a point
of view and that can keep them from fully attending to what someone
else is saying. (We have plenty of evidence of that on list.) If a
student is to develop into a strong academic writer, they need to be
able to approach it dialogically: summarizing, quoting respectfully,
agreeing and disagreeing (and sometimes both.) At the most professional
end, that means being able to do a review of the literature and to
position your own work within the ongoing work of the discipline.
    I know I'm not connecting that directly to grammar, but I have to
catch an airport shuttle. Hope that helps.

Craig >

I hate to change the topic slightly, but want some elaboration on this.
> Craig writes:
>
> Many students have a hard time learning how to hedge what they are saying
> and learning how to enter into a conversation.
>
> ***
> Craig, could you give examples of what you mean by this?
>
> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
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