Academic-Phrasebank-Personal

TheAcademicPhrasebankisageneralresourceforacademicwriters.Itmakesexplicitthemorecommonphraseological‘nutsandbolts’ofacademicwriting.AcademicPhrasebankAcompendiumofcommonlyusedphrasalelementsinacademicEnglishinPDFformat2014beditionPersonalCopyDrJohnMorley1|PagePDFDownloadversion©2014TheUniversityofManchester2|PagePrefaceTheAcademicPhrasebankisageneralresourceforacademicwriters.Itaimstoprovidethephraseological‘nutsandbolts’ofacademicwritingorganisedaccordingtothemainsectionsofaresearchpaperordissertation.Otherphrasesarelistedunderthemoregeneralcommunicativefunctionsofacademicwriting.Theresourcewasdesignedprimarilyforacademicandscientificwriterswhoarenon-nativespeakersofEnglish.However,nativespeakerwritersmaystillfindmuchofthematerialhelpful.Infact,recentdatasuggeststhatthemajorityofusersarenativespeakersofEnglish.Thephrases,andtheheadingsunderwhichtheyarelisted,canbeusedsimplytoassistyouinthinkingaboutthecontentandorganisationofyourownwriting,orthephrasescanbeincorporatedintoyourwritingwherethisisappropriate.Inmostcases,acertainamountofcreativityandadaptationwillbenecessarywhenaphraseisused.TheAcademicPhrasebankisnotdisciplinespecific.Nevertheless,itshouldbeparticularlyusefulforwriterswhoneedtoreporttheirempiricalstudies.Thephrasesarecontentneutralandgenericinnature;inusingthem,therefore,youarenotstealingotherpeople'sideasandthisdoesnotconstituteplagiarism.InthecurrentPDFversion,additionalmaterial,whichisnotphraseological,hasbeenincorporated.Theseadditionalsectionsshouldbehelpfultoyouasawriter.3|PageContentsIntroduction:AboutAcademicPhrasebank4-5MajorSectionsIntroducingwork7–12Referringtoliterature13-18Describingmethods19-22Reportingresults23-26Discussingfindings27-30Writingconclusions31-34GeneralFunctionsBeingcritical36-38Beingcautious39-41Classifyingandlisting42-43Compareandcontrast44-45Definingterms46-47Describingtrends48Describingquantities49Explainingcausality50-51Givingexamplesassupport52-53Signallingtransition54-55Writingaboutthepast56-57NotesonAcademicWritingAcademicstyle59-61Commonlyconfusedwords62-63BritishandUSspelling64Punctuation65Usingarticles66-67Sentencestructure68-69Paragraphstructure70Helpfultipsforwriters71-724|PageAboutAcademicPhrasebankTheoreticalInfluencesTheAcademicPhrasebanklargelydrawsonanapproachtoanalysingacademictextsoriginallypioneeredbyJohnSwalesinthe1980s.Utilisingagenreanalysisapproachtoidentifyrhetoricalpatternsintheintroductionstoresearcharticles,Swalesdefineda‘move’asasectionoftextthatservesaspecificcommunicativefunction(Swales,1981,1990).Thisunitofrhetoricalanalysisisusedasoneofthemainorganisingsub-categoriesoftheAcademicPhrasebank.Swalesnotonlyidentifiedcommonly-usedmovesinarticleintroductions,buthewasinterestedinshowingthekindoflanguagewhichwasusedtoachievethecommunicativepurposeofeachmove.Muchofthislanguagewasphraseologicalinnature.Theresourcealsodrawsuponpsycholinguisticinsightsintohowlanguageislearntandproduced.Itisnowacceptedthatmuchofthelanguageweuseisphraseologicalinnature;thatitisacquired,storedandretrievedaspre-formulatedconstructions(Bolinger,1976;PawleyandSyder,1983).TheseinsightsbegantobesupportedempiricallyascomputertechnologypermittedtheidentificationofrecurrentphraseologicalpatternsinverylargecorporaofspokenandwrittenEnglishusingspecialisedsoftware(e.g.Sinclair,1991).Phrasebankrecognisesthatthereisanimportantphraseologicaldimensiontoacademiclanguageandattemptstomakeexamplesofthisexplicit.SourcesofthephrasesThevastmajorityofphrasesinthisresourcehavebeentakenfromauthenticacademicsources.Theoriginalcorpusfromwhichthephraseswere‘harvested’consistedof100postgraduatedissertationscompletedattheUniversityofManchester.However,phrasesfromacademicarticlesdrawnfromabroadspectrumofdiscipleshavealsobeen,andcontinuetobe,incorporated.Inmostcases,thephraseshavebeensimplifiedandwherenecessarytheyhavebeen‘sifted’fromtheirparticularisedacademiccontent.Wherecontentwordshavebeenincludedforexemplificatorypurposes,thesearesubstitutionsoftheoriginalwords.InselectingaphraseforinclusionintotheAcademicPhrasebank,thefollowingquestionsareasked:•doesitserveausefulcommunicativepurposeinacademictext?•doesitcontaincollocationaland/orformulaicelements?•arethecontentwords(nouns,verbs,adjectives)genericinnature?•doesthecombination‘soundnatural'toanativespeakerorwriterofEnglish?Whenisitacceptabletoreusephrasesinacademicwriting?Inarecentstudy(DavisandMorley,2013),45academicsfromtwoBritishuniversitiesweresurveyedtodeterminewhetherreusingphraseswasalegitimateactivityforacademicwriters,andifso,whatkindofphrasescouldbereused.Fromthesurveyandlaterfromin-depthinterviews,thefollowingcharacteristicsforacceptabilityemerged.Areusedphrase:•shouldnothaveauniqueororiginalconstruction;•shouldnotexpressaclearpointofviewofanotherwriter;•dependingonthephrase,maybeuptoninewordsinlength;beyondthis'acceptability'declines;•maycontainuptofourgenericcontentwords(nouns,verbsoradjectiveswhicharenotboundtoaspecificdisciplinarydomain).5|PageSomeoftheentriesintheAcademicPhrasebank,containspecificcontentwordswhichhavebeeninc