The Academic Phrasebank is a
general resource for academic
writers. It makes explicit the more
common phraseological ‘nuts and
bolts’ of academic writing.
Academic
Phrasebank
A compendium of commonly
used phrasal elements in
academic English in PDF format
2021 enhanced edition
Personal Copy
Dr John Morley
Navigable PDF version
3
rd
Edition
©2021 The University of Manchester
The enhanced PDF version of Academic Phrasebank is for the sole use of the individual who has downloaded it from
www.phrasebankresearch.net. Distribution of the
enhanced PDF version of Academic Phrasebank by electronic (e.g. via
email, web download) or any other means is strictly prohibited and constitutes copyright infringement.
The enhanced version of Academic Phrasebank is only available on this website: http://www.phrasebankresearch.net as a
PDF file or on the Kindle store (search “Academic Phrasebank” in your regional Kindle store). If you see this enhanced
version of Academic Phrasebank made available anywhere else, please contact john.morley@manchester.ac.uk
immediately.
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Preface
The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers. It aims to provide the
phraseological ‘nuts and bolts’ of academic writing organised according to the main sections of a
research paper or dissertation. Other phrases are listed under the more general communicative
functions of academic writing.
The resource was designed primarily for academic and scientific writers who are non-native speakers
of English. However, native writers may still find much of the material helpful. In fact, recent data
suggest that the majority of users are native speakers of English.
The phrases, and the headings under which they are listed, can be used simply to assist you in
thinking about the content and organisation of your own writing, or the phrases can be incorporated
into your writing where this is appropriate. In most cases, a certain amount of creativity and
adaptation will be necessary when a phrase is used.
The Academic Phrasebank is not discipline specific. Nevertheless, it should be particularly useful for
writers who need to report their empirical studies. The phrases are content neutral and generic in
nature; in using them, therefore, you are not stealing other people's ideas and this does not
constitute plagiarism.
Most of the phrases in this compendium have been organised according to the main sections of a
research report. However, it is an over-simplification to associate the phrases only with the section in
which they have been placed here. In reality, for example, many of phrases used for referring to
other studies may be found throughout a research report.
In the current PDF version, additional material, which is not phraseological, has been included at the
end of the document. These additional sections should be helpful to you as a writer.
Dr John Morley, 2021
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Contents
About Academic Phrasebank
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4
Major Sections
Introducing Work
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7
Reviewing the Literature
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32
Describing Methods
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47
Reporting Results
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57
Discussing Findings
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65
Writing Conclusions
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73
General Functions
Being Cautious
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84
Being Critical
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88
Classifying and Listing
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99
Comparing and Contrasting
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102
Defining Terms
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106
Describing Trends
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111
Describing Quantities
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113
Explaining Causality
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115
Giving Examples as Support
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119
Signalling Transition
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121
Indicating Shared Knowledge
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125
Writing about the Past
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127
Writing Abstracts
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129
Writing Acknowledgements
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132
Notes on Academic Writing
Academic Style
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135
Style in Presentations
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138
British and US Spelling
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141
Punctuation
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142
Using Articles
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143
Sentence Structure
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145
Paragraph Structure
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147
Tips on the Writing Process
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148
Useful Lists
Connecting Words
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151
Commonly Confused Words
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152
Commonly Used Verbs
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154
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About Academic Phrasebank
Theoretical Influences
The Academic Phrasebank largely draws on an approach to analysing academic texts originally
pioneered by John Swales in the 1980s. Utilising a genre analysis approach to identify rhetorical
patterns in the introductions to research articles, Swales defined a ‘move’ as a section of text that
serves a specific communicative function (Swales, 1981,1990). This unit of rhetorical analysis is used
as one of the main organising sub-categories of the Academic Phrasebank. Swales not only identified
commonly used moves in article introductions, but he was interested in showing the kind of language
which was used to achieve the communicative purpose of each move. Much of this language was
phraseological in nature.
The resource also draws upon psycholinguistic insights into how language is learnt and produced. It is
now accepted that much of the language we use is phraseological; that it is acquired, stored and
retrieved as pre-formulated constructions (Bolinger, 1976; Pawley and Syder, 1983). These insights
began to be supported empirically in the 1990s as computer technology permitted the identification
of recurrent phraseological patterns in very large corpora of spoken and written English using
specialised software (e.g. Sinclair, 1991). Phrasebank recognises that there is an important
phraseological dimension to academic language and attempts to make examples of this explicit.
Sources of the phrases
The vast majority of phrases in this resource have been taken from authentic academic sources. The
original corpus from which the phrases were ‘harvested’ consisted of 100 postgraduate dissertations
completed at the University of Manchester. However, phrases from academic articles drawn from a
broad spectrum of disciplines have also been, and continue to be, incorporated. In most cases, the
phrases have been simplified and where necessary they have been ‘sifted’ from their particularised
academic content. Where content words have been included for exemplificatory purposes, these are
substitutions of the original words. In selecting a phrase for inclusion into the Academic Phrasebank,
the following questions are asked:
• does it serve a useful communicative purpose in academic text?
• does it contain collocational and/or formulaic elements?
• are the content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) generic in nature?
• does the combination ‘sound natural' to a native speaker or writer of English?
When is it acceptable to reuse phrases in academic writing?
In a recent study (Davis and Morley, 2015), 45 academics from two British universities were surveyed
to determine whether reusing phrases was a legitimate activity for academic writers, and if so, what
kind of phrases could be reused. From the survey and later from in-depth interviews, the following
characteristics for acceptability emerged. A reused phrase:
• should not have a unique or original construction;
• should not express a clear point of view of another writer;
• depending on the phrase, may be up to nine words in length; beyond this 'acceptability'
declines;
• may contain up to four generic content words (nouns, verbs or adjectives which are not
bound to a specific topic).
Some of the entries in the Academic Phrasebank, contain specific content words which have been
included for illustrative purposes. These words should be substituted when the phrases are used. In
the phrases below, for example, the content words in bold should be substituted:
