Generality in student and expert epistemic stance: A corpus analysis of first-year, upper-level, and published academic writing

Research highlights the importance of stance in academic writing, and recent research shows increasing emphasis on stance in undergraduate writing. Most studies of student writing focus on epistemic stance in terms of certainty and not generality; yet instructional materials suggest that developing writers need to learn to limit generalizations. This study examines the use of certain indefinite pronouns and extreme amplifiers that help indicate generality as a part of stance in three corpora: new college writing, advanced student writing, and published academic writing. The study shows two specific and shared rhetorical uses of generalization markers, emphasizing the wide applicability of a claim and projecting shared ideas. The study also shows clear differences in the frequency of generalizations used and the breadth or scope of generalizations made. Published academic writing contains the fewest generalization markers, while new college writing shows the most generalizations as well as generalizations that span large groups and periods of time. The findings suggest that in non-discipline specific essay writing, new college students' frequent use of generalization markers contrasts the more circumspect stance features in advanced student and published discipline-specific writing, posing questions for writing instruction as well as essay-based writing assessment.