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Talking about an article in English can be scary! That is why many people stay quiet, and do not share their opinions. However, talking about texts you have read in English doesn't have to give you anxiety -- in this video, you will learn key phrases and expressions you can use to talk about the texts you have read. These phrases are suitable for academic, business, and social contexts when discussing texts such as reports and academic papers.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everyone. I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is phrases you can use when you need to talk about an article, a report, or maybe it could be a book or something like that in a university context, but maybe also as well in a meeting you might need to say something about some literature you were supposed to read before that meeting. So, by watching today's lesson, I'll give you some phrases that you can build up and make some sentences where you can sound very informed, and very opinionated, and say all the right things in a business or academic context.

 

So, let's take a look at these different phrases and sentences we can use. You can make direct statements of opinion about the article or what you've read. And to do that, you can use "I". So you can say: "I thought". If we're talking about an article, you can say: "I thought the article was thorough". "Thorough" means that something takes a look at all the important things, all the necessary things that it should cover for that kind of topic. Nothing is left out if it's thorough.

 

If we're talking about the introduction, that means the beginning, the beginning part of the article, perhaps you've got something interesting to say about the beginning. "The introduction was insightful." If it's insightful, you learnt something. "Yes, it was insightful. It was... It was... You know, I approve of it. It was insightful."

 

Perhaps the rest of the article isn't very good, but you've got something good to say about the introduction. Another variation of: "I thought", or: "I think", you could use it present tense as well, is: "In my opinion". "In my opinion, because I know about these things, the case studies were too short." A case study is where you get an example. Or you could say it's like a story of someone who's been through a particular situation, and usually case studies are put together to show how a business or organization helps somebody or solves a problem. So, you'll often encounter case studies in the world of work. They're meant to be persuasive, and they're meant to move you to action or make you want to do something, or prove to you how something works or how something doesn't work.

 

So, you could say: "The case studies were too short." We use "too" for a negative opinion. So this wasn't good about the case studies. We could use any other adjective. We could say: "too long". We can build the sentence like that.

 

Next, you could use the same building block there: "The case studies were fairly persuasive." Here, we're using adverb, and then adjective. "Fairly" means quite, but "fairly" is the more formal version. And it's a word that feels more academic, and it feels more like you're giving a serious opinion if you say "fairly". "It was fairly persuasive." So they were good, but you know, maybe they could have been better. Here, you're softening your praise. If you're saying: "The case studies were persuasive", that's stronger. That's like you approve of them more. But if you put "fairly" there, little bit less than without "fairly."

 

Again, we're still talking about "in my opinion". "In my opinion, the findings". "Findings" is another word for "conclusion". "The findings were inconclusive." If something is inconclusive, you're not quite sure if the thing has been proven. It's undecided. We're not quite sure of the result or the outcome. Maybe more research needs to be done. If it's inconclusive, we need to wait and see.

 

Moving on now, this is another way to give your opinion. You can say: "As I see it", you're using yourself, and your knowledge, and your way of viewing the world. You can look at it like that to pass your opinions and your knowledge to others. "The recommendations are unworkable." So, many reports will make recommendations. So, they'll analyze a situation. At the end, they'll say: "We think this needs to happen." Those are the recommendations. The recommendations are made by experts, experts who researched and made a report. You, on the other hand, may think that their recommendations are unworkable; they simply won't work. They're not as good as my recommendations on my report. They're unworkable. They would not work in real life.

 

And you could say, as well: "As I see it, the report is first-rate." That's quite a formal way of saying excellent. It can't be better. It's excellent research and very well done, it's first-rate.

 

 Let's have a look at some verbs we can use when talking about these articles, reports, that kind of thing now. So, here's some different verbs that we can use. As I mentioned, some reports or most reports, I suppose, were written for a purpose. They want to propose something happens, they've got a particular agenda and a particular reason for writing the report, and they want to show that. So, you can use these verbs to describe that. You can say: "The verb argues that". The verb... Why did I say "verb"? I think I said "verb". I mean: "The report argues that...", "The report proposes that..." Or: "The report advocates that..." They have related meanings. "Argue" is like a strong way of saying they want something to happen. "The report argues that traffic should not be allowed in Central London after pm." I mean, that's quite a strong argument, but it just came to my head. "To propose" something is more like a recommendation.

 

It's saying that this would be a good idea. "The report proposes that children should not eat junk food." It's a good proposal, isn't it? And, we could say: "The report advocates that..." Oh, it's really hard to improvise sentences. "The report advocates that children should not play more than four hours of computer games a day." That's a really bad report. "The report advocates that time spent playing computer games should be limited." Okay. That's what I meant. Not all the time. So, we use those verbs to show the degree of how strong something is being argued or recommended. Let's have a look at some more verbs now. Again, we can talk about the author of the report or we can name them. Perhaps the report writer is Professor Smith, and then we can use these verbs to talk about their claims and what they're saying. So, we can directly say: "Professor Smith suggests that", blah, blah, blah.

 

A suggestion is based on your knowledge and your experience. Again, it's not as strong. It's not as strong as a recommendation, but it's related. Profesha... Professor. "Professor Smith recommends that...", "Professor Smith recommends that students do extra homework at the weekends in his report." And if you just want to say what was said, you can use: "states". This is quite a formal verb, which sounds good when you're talking about written text. "Professor Smith states that..." Improvising sentences, I don't like doing it. "Professor Smith states that the English language is the best language in the world." So, you can say anything there in the present simple when you're using "states". And, also, because people who write reports are like authorities and they know about things, they're very clever people, they can give us advice. So, we can say "advises". "Professor Smith advises that teachers should not improvise sentences in lessons." Ooh. "Useful Phrases for Suggesting Improvements".

 

A lot of the time, when we're talking about somebody else's work, we need to be careful about the way we give our opinions because we could upset other people, and they might think that we're like a really annoying person, or a stronger word we could use. So, we need to watch our language. It's important to get it right so that you don't... I keep saying that. Anyway... You can say this: "I would have expected to see..." I wouldn't necessarily say that directly to the person who wrote the report or article, but if you're just talking generally among classmates or something, or colleagues, or other people who have also read the report, you can make the statement with "I" and be direct and give your opinion. But as I said, if the person who actually wrote the report is there, it could feel like you're challenging them. "I would have expected to see more information regarding sales figures." "I would have expected", it's like... It's like you're making a recommendation there, how it could be better.

 

This report was not as good because it did not do this. It did not have this information. "I would have expected to see more commentary on..." Improvising. "I would have expected to see more commentary on the sales figures for London stores." Okay? And again: "I would have expected to see additional data on purchases over Christmas time." So, these are direct opinions. The positive thing about giving direct opinions is you're putting your own subjectivity in there, that's your voice with "I" and it sounds like you're confident enough to say something about it. The negative thing about it is that it can be very, very strong.

 

So, how do we avoid coming across as somebody who is like just throwing around their opinions? Well, if you need or wish to do that, you can distance your sentences by taking your subjectivity out of it. We're not using "I" anymore. You make the subject of the sentence the report or the article, whatever. That way, you can give your opinions indirectly. "The report could be improved by including interviews with experts.", "The report could be improved by proposing solutions to the problem." I didn't put a full stop there, that's very naughty of me. Needs a full stop. A proposal, again, is like a suggestion. "The report could be improved by providing recommendations." These are all different ways to improve that report, because you're showing from your reading experience that not only have you taken in all the information, but you've analyzed it and you're now able to say: "Well, actually, if that were my report, it would be better because these things would be in it." That makes you sound really clever.

 

So, what to take away from today's lesson, you can learn these stock phrases just to make it a little bit easier when you need something to say maybe in a seminar situation, a university situation, or it could be a work situation if you sometimes discuss articles and reports in your meetings. So, yes, from this, what you do now is you go to the engVid website and you do the quiz there, and then that will teach you so much more about this kind of stuff. You'll be really, really clever, and I really think you should do that. That would be good for you. And before you go, though, it's really necessary, important that you subscribe to my channel here, my engVid channel because I'd like you to come back and watch more of my videos. So, yeah, I'm finished now. So, yeah, come... Please come back and see me soon. Bye.