به گفتهٔ / طبق

Attribution and Sources in News

Level 5

به گفتهٔ مدیر، جلسه فردا برگزار می‌شود. The timing is attributed to the director.

How It Works

Name the speaker. به گفتهٔ مدیر، جلسه فردا برگزار می‌شود attributes the meeting time to the director. گفتهٔ takes ezafe before مدیر. The phrase does not prove the director’s statement is true.

Name a reference. طبق برنامه، کلاس ساعت نه شروع می‌شود presents the schedule as the reference. A schedule is not a person who spoke; the source relation differs even though English may use according to for both.

Separate a claim from an observation. به گفتهٔ سارا، نامه دیروز فرستاده شده است reports Sara’s account. The passive leaves the sender unnamed; Sara is the source of the statement, not automatically the sender.

Track the attribution boundary. If a paragraph changes from a source’s claim to the writer’s conclusion, name that change clearly. A source phrase at the beginning does not establish the origin of every following pronoun, number or conclusion without context.

Examples (4)

  1. به گفتهٔ مدیر، جلسه فردا برگزار می‌شود.

    According to the director, the meeting will be held tomorrow.

  2. طبق برنامه، کلاس ساعت نه شروع می‌شود.

    According to the schedule, class starts at nine.

  3. به گفتهٔ سارا، نامه دیروز فرستاده شده است.

    According to Sara, the letter was sent yesterday.

  4. طبق این گزارش، تعداد مسافران بیشتر شده است.

    According to this report, the number of passengers has increased.

How It Connects

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به گفتهٔ / طبقLevel 5Attribution and Sources in News

Learn This First

Recognize a report and its source. Read the source phrase’s ezafe spelling. Distinguish a report source from the unnamed actor in a passive.

Learn Next

Patterns that build on this one.