§             This study, thesis, paper etc.

§             … has shown or demonstrated …

§             … has attempted to …

§             … has made a contribution towards …

§             … contributes to our understanding of …

§             … may contribute towards a better understanding of …

§             … has focused attention on …

§             … may stimulate the debate on …

§             … extends previous work on …

§             … has highlighted a number of problems (with or in …)

§             … has drawn attention to a number of problem areas in existing theory

§             … differs from previous research in that …

§             … differs from previous research in a number of respects

§             … offers an alternative view or interpretation of …

§             … has gone some way towards understanding or explaining …

§             … has been able to make a number of generalizations about …

§             This approach etc.

§             … has enabled better explanation of …

§             … has enabled underlying principles to be identified more clearly

§             an explanation for …

§             a key insight into …

§             a better understanding of …

§             a number of tentative conclusions on …

§             This underlines the importance of …

§             The advantages of this approach are …

§             A number of key issues have been addressed in this study.

§             … represents one of the main contributions of this study

§             One of the (most important) contributions of this study is …

§             Developments viewed in isolation by earlier studies are here considered together.

§             In contrast to previous research on … , this study has attempted to …

§             There are obvious limitations to or in …

§             … can only be adequately explained by …

§             … beyond the scope of this study

§             The problem is a complex one.

§             What the study is not able to say is …

§             This study does not claim to be able to …

§             Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that …

§             It remains to be seen whether …

§             much work remains to be done (on …)

… requires (a great deal of) further research