This study investigates the interpersonal functions of basic and reversed wh-clefts extracted from the Freiburg LOB corpus of written English (FLOB), within the framework of appraisal (Martin 2000, White 2001). It is demonstrated that whilst basic wh-clefts tend to express newsworthy, often contrastive, authorial positions, reversed wh-clefts tend to negotiate, confirm and sometimes challenge already established authorial positions.