Found in 2-4% of dissertation sentences. Every time you write "many," "significant," or "various," your committee reads "I didn't actually count."
Replace the vague quantifier with specific details or citations.
"Many studies have shown..." How many? Three? Thirty? Three hundred? "The intervention had a significant impact..." Significant how? Statistically significant at p < .05? Practically significant in terms of effect size? Or do you just mean "big"? In academic writing, these vague quantifiers are placeholders for precision you haven't yet achieved.
Your committee reads vague language as one of two things: either you don't know the specifics (which raises questions about the depth of your reading), or you know them but can't be bothered to include them (which raises questions about your scholarly rigor). Neither interpretation works in your favor.
The fix is almost always available in your sources. If you wrote "many studies," you can count them or cite a meta-analysis that counted them. If you wrote "significant impact," you can report the actual effect size or statistical result. If you wrote "various factors," you can name the factors. Precision doesn't make your writing longer—it makes it credible.
Terms like "various factors" or "many studies" promise breadth without delivering it.
Various factors contribute to student success.
Three primary factors contribute to student success: parental involvement, teacher quality, and socioeconomic status (Garcia, 2021).
"Many researchers" replaced with specific count and actual citations.
Many researchers have studied the effects of poverty on education.
The relationship between poverty and educational outcomes has been extensively documented, with three major meta-analyses published since 2015 (Berkowitz et al., 2017; Dietrichson et al., 2017; Morgan et al., 2019).
"Significant impact" replaced with actual effect size and statistical significance.
The program had a significant impact on student achievement.
The program improved student achievement by an average of 0.4 standard deviations on standardized math assessments (d = 0.42, p < .01; Thompson, 2021).
"Various factors" replaced with the actual factors named in the source.
Various factors contribute to teacher burnout.
Teacher burnout is driven by three primary factors: workload intensity, lack of administrative support, and emotional labor (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017).
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