Academic Writing | Dutch Grammar

Academic Dutch is built to do two things at once: sound objective and sound cautious. Objectivity comes from removing the visible author — the personal ik, the emotional reaction, the bold first-person claim — and replacing them with impersonal passives, abstract nouns and the scholarly wij. Caution comes from hedging: scholars rarely assert that something is the case; they write that it appears to be, that it may be, that the data suggest a pattern. To an English-speaking learner the result can feel evasive, but in Dutch academic prose it is the mark of competence — over-claiming and writing ik vind read as undergraduate. This page covers the register's main instruments.

Nominal style: pack the action into nouns

The foundation of academic Dutch is nominale stijl — turning verbs into nouns so that processes become discussable things. Where everyday Dutch says de prijzen stegen, academic Dutch says de stijging van de prijzen. This compresses information, sounds formal, and conveniently lets the writer talk about a process without naming who performed it. (The dedicated Nominal Style page goes deep; here it is one tool among several.)

De analyse van de gegevens leidde tot een herziening van de hypothese.

The analysis of the data led to a revision of the hypothesis. (two nominalizations — 'analyse', 'herziening' — carry the content; the agent is invisible)

Voor de beantwoording van deze vraag is nader onderzoek vereist.

Answering this question requires further research. ('beantwoording' as a noun; impersonal 'is vereist')

The passive: the engine of impersonality

Academic Dutch leans heavily on the worden-passive, especially the impersonal er wordt construction, to state what is done without saying by whom. Er wordt aangetoond dat... ("It is shown that...") and wordt onderzocht ("is investigated") are the rhythm of a methods section. (See The worden-passive.)

In dit hoofdstuk wordt onderzocht of er een verband bestaat tussen beide variabelen.

This chapter investigates whether a relationship exists between the two variables. (passive 'wordt onderzocht' — no 'I', no 'we')

Er wordt aangetoond dat de eerdere conclusie niet houdbaar is.

It is demonstrated that the earlier conclusion is untenable. (the impersonal 'er wordt' passive — the classic scholarly framing)

De resultaten worden in hoofdstuk vier besproken.

The results are discussed in chapter four. (agentless passive — the focus is the results, not the discusser)

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The impersonal passive is academic Dutch's solution to the "who did it?" problem. Er wordt aangetoond dat... lets you assert a finding while keeping yourself out of the sentence. English increasingly prefers the active "I show that..."; Dutch academic convention is still markedly more comfortable with the impersonal passive. Reach for it when you'd otherwise write ik.

Person: men, we, wij — and the banished ik

Academic Dutch offers a graded set of "authorial" subjects, and avoids the bare personal ik.

men — "one / people in general." Maximally impersonal and formal, slightly old-fashioned but still standard in scholarly prose: Men neemt aan dat... ("It is assumed that...").
wij / we — the "academic we," covering the author(s) and often gently including the reader: In dit artikel betogen wij dat... ("In this article we argue that..."). Used even by a single author.
ik — the personal first person. Used sparingly, and only in some disciplines (humanities, reflective sections) where a stated authorial stance is acceptable. In the empirical sciences it is largely avoided.

Men gaat er doorgaans van uit dat de steekproef representatief is.

It is generally assumed that the sample is representative. (impersonal 'men' — high formality)

Wij richten ons in deze studie op de periode na 1990.

In this study we focus on the period after 1990. (the academic 'wij', even for a sole author)

The thing to avoid is not just ik but personal emotion and evaluation: ik vind dit interessant, het is jammer dat, een prachtig resultaat. Academic register replaces opinion-language with evidence-language: not ik denk dat het belangrijk is, but deze bevinding lijkt van belang ("this finding appears significant").

Hedging: claim cautiously

This is the feature English speakers most often under-use. Dutch academic writing hedges almost everything — it marks claims as provisional, qualified, probable rather than certain. The hedge is not weakness; it is precision about your degree of confidence.

Hedge	Force	English
lijkt (te) / blijkt	appears / turns out	seems to
zou kunnen	tentative possibility	could / might
vermoedelijk / waarschijnlijk	presumably / probably	presumably
wijst erop dat / suggereert	evidence points to	indicates / suggests
in zekere mate / grotendeels	to some extent / largely	partly / largely
doorgaans / veelal	generally / mostly	generally

De gegevens lijken erop te wijzen dat het effect kleiner is dan eerder werd aangenomen.

The data appear to indicate that the effect is smaller than was previously assumed. (double hedge: 'lijken' + 'erop te wijzen' — careful, not weak)

Deze uitkomst zou kunnen samenhangen met de gekozen onderzoeksmethode.

This outcome could be related to the chosen research method. ('zou kunnen' marks a tentative, unproven link)

Het is vermoedelijk geen toeval dat beide trends gelijktijdig optreden.

It is presumably no coincidence that both trends occur simultaneously. ('vermoedelijk' qualifies a claim the data don't fully prove)

Formal connectives

Academic Dutch signals the logical skeleton of an argument with a register-specific stock of connectives — the formal members of the pairs you met in spoken Dutch (dus → derhalve, maar → evenwel).

Academic connective	Everyday twin	Function
derhalve / bijgevolg	dus / daardoor	therefore / consequently
evenwel / echter	maar / toch	however
voorts / tevens	ook / verder	furthermore / moreover
met betrekking tot	over / wat betreft	with regard to
teneinde	om (te)	in order to
aangezien / daar	omdat	since / because
desalniettemin	toch	nevertheless

De steekproef was klein; de resultaten dienen derhalve met voorzichtigheid te worden geïnterpreteerd.

The sample was small; the results should therefore be interpreted with caution. ('derhalve' + 'dienen te' + passive — fully academic)

Met betrekking tot de tweede hypothese werden geen significante verschillen gevonden.

With regard to the second hypothesis, no significant differences were found. ('met betrekking tot' + agentless passive)

De theorie verklaart de meeste gevallen; voorts biedt zij een kader voor toekomstig onderzoek.

The theory explains most cases; furthermore, it offers a framework for future research. ('voorts' adds a point in formal register)

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One word, echter ("however"), deserves a placement note: in academic Dutch it usually sits inside the clause, in the middle field, not at the very front — De data zijn echter beperkt, not Echter, de data zijn beperkt. The fronted, comma-ed "Echter, ..." is a known calque from English and is widely flagged in Dutch style guides.

Common Mistakes

❌ Ik vind dat dit een heel interessant en mooi resultaat is.

Incorrect for academic prose — 'ik vind', plus the emotional 'interessant'/'mooi', is personal evaluation, not scholarly claim.

✅ Dit resultaat lijkt van bijzonder belang voor de theorievorming.

This result appears to be of particular importance for theory formation.

❌ Dus de conclusie is dat de hypothese klopt.

Incorrect — 'dus' and 'klopt' are spoken register, and the claim is unhedged and over-confident.

✅ De bevindingen wijzen er derhalve op dat de hypothese grotendeels wordt bevestigd.

The findings therefore indicate that the hypothesis is largely confirmed.

❌ Echter, de steekproef was te klein om iets te bewijzen.

Incorrect placement and over-claim — fronted 'Echter,' is a calque, and 'bewijzen' over-claims; academic prose hedges.

✅ De steekproef was echter te klein om hierover uitsluitsel te geven.

The sample was, however, too small to be conclusive on this point.

❌ We hebben aangetoond dat het effect bestaat, dat is zeker.

Incorrect — the unhedged 'dat is zeker' over-claims certainty that data rarely warrant.

✅ De resultaten suggereren dat het effect waarschijnlijk bestaat.

The results suggest that the effect probably exists.

❌ Met betrekking tot dit, het is niet duidelijk wat er gebeurde.

Incorrect — 'met betrekking tot dit' is malformed (it needs a noun) and the clause is spoken/loose; tighten with a passive.

✅ Met betrekking tot dit punt is niet duidelijk welk mechanisme werkzaam was.

With regard to this point, it is unclear which mechanism was at work.

Key Takeaways

Academic Dutch chases two goals: objectivity (remove the visible author) and caution (hedge claims).
Objectivity tools: nominal style, the impersonal er wordt-passive, and men / wij instead of ik; banish personal emotion and evaluation.
Caution tools: hedges — lijkt, zou kunnen, vermoedelijk, suggereert, grotendeels. Over-claiming reads as unscholarly.
Connectives shift to the formal register: derhalve, evenwel, voorts, met betrekking tot, teneinde, desalniettemin. Keep echter inside the clause, not fronted.
The register's whole logic is to sound measured and impersonal — write deze bevinding lijkt van belang, never ik vind dit mooi.

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