5 When writing your essay, it is important to make your ideas sound realistic and not exaggerated. You can use modals such as could, can, may, might, etc to do this. You can also use adverbs (sometimes, often, not always, etc) or determiners (some, many, most, etc) to achieve the same effect. Rewrite these ideas in your notebook, making any necessary changes, to make them sound more believable.