The phrase "attempt to specify" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when discussing efforts to clarify or define something more precisely.
Example: "In this report, we will attempt to specify the key factors that contribute to climate change."
Alternatives: "try to define" or "make an effort to clarify".
The best versions of these arguments attempt to specify in some detail what the relevant alternatives are; in such cases, as with Kuhn's arguments about the irresolvability of scientific revolutions, philosophical responses must attend to the details.
The present paper is an attempt to specify and estimate problems and areas of CE suitable for the application of such technologies, with the focus on Bridge Engineering (BE).
He talks about arriving at "a different definition of happiness itself", although he doesn't attempt to specify one, concluding that "these things are excruciatingly hard to put into words".
"Once the first results of the analysis of the victim's mobile telephone and the images diffused by Periscope are known, the investigators will attempt to specify the motivations for her act, and if necessary, to enlarge the investigation," Lallement said in a statement.
A construction which I believe at least equally plausible, based simply on the juxtaposition of the various sections of the statute, is that § 2515 contains a basic proscription of certain conduct, but does not attempt to specify remedies or rights arising from a breach of that proscription; the specification of remedies is left to other sections.
(See Vallier 2014 for the most recent and sophisticated attempt to specify those counterfactual conditions).
Buddhist councils in the first centuries after the Buddha's death attempted to specify which teachings attributed to the Buddha could be considered authentic.
In this study, we attempted to specify the genes regulated by GH in the heart of spontaneous dwarf rat using a microarray analysis.
Many studies have attempted to specify alternative model configurations as fitting empirical data with the aid of structural equation modeling (SEM) method.
It again makes one wonder why he attempts to specify appropriate levels of government intervention, rather than develop means to arrive at political agreements, or rather than simply championing federalism.
The extreme behavior of surface waves as they encounter and pass compliant deepwater platforms is an important class of problems for offshore engineers attempting to specify the platform deck elevation.
