This study considers the way in which medical writers talk about things which they deem to
be true, possible, and untrue The study considers research papers drawn from three leading …

… A concordance to the Complete English poems of John Skelton in. John Scattergood's 'The
Complete English Poems of John Skelton', originally published in 1983 and long out of print …

The aim of this paper is to look at the way hedging and related phenomena work in context,
rather than in isolation. In it I attempt to do three things. Firstly I look at the theoretical …

Objective: To investigate how doctors engage with patients with psychotic illness in routine
consultations. Design: Conversation analysis of 32 consultations between psychiatrists and …

The notion of ‘hedging’ dates back to Lakoff (1972), but its nature and its consequences for
English Language Teaching are not well understood. This article offers a description of the …

BACKGROUND. An increasing number of people involved in medicine are under pressure to
publish research, but there is little understanding of how to describe structured writing. AIM. …

BACKGROUND: All languages use metaphoric expressions; some deliberately chosen, some
(for example, 'digesting information') not usually perceived as metaphoric. Increasingly, it …

Background: Performance measurement and quality of care in community pharmacy settings
is problematic because of the lack of formal patient registration and the resultant risk of …

Objectives Although it is accepted that history taking is central to correct diagnosis, little work
has been undertaken on the development of sexual history taking, particularly in a primary …

Methods To find out how discussion sections are currently structured, we did an informal survey
of original papers (excluding short reports) published in the BMJ from March to May 1999…