Academic Phrase bank by Dr. John

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 speaker writers may still find much of the material helpful. In fact, recent
data suggests 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.

In the current PDF version, additional material, which is not phraseological, has been incorporated.
These additional sections should be helpful to you as a writer.

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 in nature; that it is acquired,

stored and retrieved as pre-formulated constructions (Bolinger, 1976; Pawley and Syder, 1983).

These insights began to be supported empirically 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 disciples 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, t the ese are

substitutions of the original words. In selecting a phrase for inclusion into the Academic Phrasebank,

the following questions are asked:

1. Does it serve a useful communicative purpose in the academic text?
2. Does it contain collocational and/or formulaic elements?
3. Are the content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) generic in nature?
4. 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, 2013), 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:

1. Should not have a unique or original construction;
2. Should not express a clear point of view of another writer;
3. Depending on the phrase, may be up to nine words in length; beyond this 'acceptability'
4. declines;
5. May contain up to four generic content words (nouns, verbs or adjectives which are not
6. Bound to a specific disciplinary domain).

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:

• X is a major public health problem, and the cause of .....
• X is the leading cause of death in western-industrialised countries.

The many thousands of disciplinary-specific phrases which can be found in academic communication

comprise a separate category of phrases. These tend to be shorter than the generic phrases listed in

Academic Phrasebank, and typically consist of noun phrases or combinations of these. Acceptability

for reusing these is determined by the extent to which they are used and understood by members of

a particular academic community.

Further work

Development of the website content is ongoing. In addition, research is currently being carried out

on the ways in which experienced and less-experienced writers make use of the Academic

Phrasebank. Another project is seeking to find out more about ways in which teachers of English for

academic purposes make use of this resource.

References

• Bolinger, D. (1976) ‘Meaning and memory’. Forum Linguisticum, 1, pp. 1–14.
• Davis, M. and Morley, J. (2013) 'Use your own words: Exploring the boundaries of plagiarism'.
• In EAP within the higher education garden: Cross-pollination between disciplines,
• Departments and research, John Wrigglesworth (Ed.). Proceedings of the BALEAP Conference,
• Portsmouth 2011. Reading: Garnet Education.
• Hopkins, A. & Dudley-Evans, A. (1988). ‘A genre-based investigations of the discussions
• Sections in articles and dissertation’. English for Specific Purposes, 7(2), 113-122.
• Pawley, A. and Syder, F.H. (1983). ‘Two puzzles for linguistic theory: nativelike selection and
• Nativelike fluency’. In: Richards, J.C. and Schmidt, R.W. (Eds.), Language and Communication,
• PP. 191-226. Longman: New York.
• Sinclair, J. (1991) Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Swales, J. (1981). Aspects of article introductions (Aston ESP Research Report No. 1).
• Birmingham: Language Studies Unit: University of Aston.
• Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge:
• Cambridge University Press.

Download Academic Phrase bank in PDF

The Academic Phrase bank is a general resource for academic writers. It makes explicit the more common phraseological ‘nuts and bolts’ of academic writing. A compendium of commonly used phrasal elements in academic English in PDF format.

2014-b Edition

Written by: Dr. John Morley

You are download this booklet from EngineerMohsinAli.blogspot.com