2. In business and everyday English, you sometimes
have to describe changes in trends (movement or
tendency), graphs, and diagrams.
In the business context, you may have to describe
trends in reports, meetings, and presentations. In
everyday life, you could describe changes in any
subject because things change all the time!
3. We use following verbs and nouns to express
negative (-) and positive (+) trends
4. Verbs Transitive
Negative:
Decrease
Reduce
Lower
Positive:
Increase
Raise
Intransitive
Negative:
Decresase
Fall
Drop
Go down
Decline
Positive:
Increase
Rise
Go up
Grow
5. Transitive verbs are always used with an object:
The local utility has announced that it will raise
the price of electricity by 2% in June
Intransitive verbs are never used with an object
Net income has fallen for the second quarter
6. Describing changes and trends generally consists of
three parts:
Use a verb (or an adjective and a noun) to describe
movement
Describe the speed or size of the movement
Explain the reason or consequence of the change
You can also view it this way: Verb + Speed or Size
+ Result/Reason/Consequence
7. When we want to
describe significant
changes, we can use the
following intransitive
verbs.
Negative:
Plummet
Plunge
Slump
Collapse
Positive:
Soar
Skyrocket
Shoot up
8. When we want to give the exact degree or duration
of a change, we can do this by:
Indicating the beginning and the end of the trends
with the prepositions form and to
The share price fell from $23 in June to only $12 in
August.
Using the preposition by to indicate the extent of
the change
House prices have fallen by 3% over the last 3
months
9. Nouns, adjectives and verbs
The following nouns are
used to describe trends:
Negative:
A reduction
A decrease
A fall
A drop
Positive:
An increase
A rise
A raise
Growth
10. The followings adverbs
and adjectives are often
added to verbs and
nouns to show the
degree of change:
Adjective:
Significant
Sharp
Slight
Moderate
Adverb:
Significantly
Sharply
Slightly
Moderately