Academic Word List (AWL)

a specialised training school, or a society of scholars and artists

The adjective 'academic' is far commoner in research writing than this noun. The noun names an institution for specialist training (a military academy, a police academy) or a learned society (the National Academy of Sciences). In England it also names a state school run outside local authority control, which is a technical term in education policy. Plural academies; 'the academy' with a definite article is a loose collective name for university life.

to change something slightly so that it works better or fits new conditions

Two senses that examiners test. Transitively it means to change something slightly so it fits (adjust the settings); intransitively it means to adapt to new conditions and takes 'to' (adjust to living abroad). In quantitative work 'adjusted for' is a fixed phrase you cannot avoid: figures adjusted for inflation, results adjusted for age and sex, adjusted R squared. Prefer it to 'change' when the change is small and deliberate.

to change something, or to make it different in some way

Worth learning against 'amend', which is also on this sublist. You alter a thing's state, shape or behaviour (warming altered the season); you amend a text or a rule through an agreed procedure. It is stronger than 'adjust' and weaker than 'transform', and it does not imply improvement. The noun is 'alteration'; 'altercation' goes back to the same Latin alter but means a noisy quarrel, so the two are never interchangeable.

to make small changes to a text, law or agreement in order to improve or correct it

Belongs to documents and rules, never to objects: amend a bill, a constitution, a contract, a draft. The noun 'amendment' is the family member you cite by name (the Fourteenth Amendment, a tabled amendment). Do not confuse it with 'emend', a rare editorial term for correcting a text, or with the idiom 'make amends', which means to compensate for a wrong. Where a physical thing changes, use 'alter'.

knowing that something exists or is the case

Bare, it does not go before a noun: 'an aware student' is wrong; with a modifier in front it is fine, as in 'environmentally aware consumers'. It stands after a linking verb and takes 'of' or a that clause. The noun 'awareness' is the form that appears in research titles (public awareness, awareness campaign, self awareness), so learn the pair together. It claims knowledge rather than attention, so a participant who is not aware of the hypothesis simply does not know it.

the amount something can hold or produce, the ability to do something, or the role someone holds

Three senses, and academic prose uses all three. The maximum an object holds or a plant produces (running at full capacity, production capacity); the ability or power to do something, taking 'to' or 'for' (the capacity to learn, capacity for growth); and a role someone occupies, in the fixed phrase 'in her capacity as chair'. In development studies 'capacity building' is a set phrase for strengthening institutions rather than funding them.

to question whether something is true, fair or legally valid

The academic verb is the sharp one: to challenge a claim, an assumption or a finding means to dispute it, and in law to challenge a ruling means to contest it formally. The noun has drifted into a polite substitute for 'problem', which is why 'the challenges facing the sector' is usually padding; name the problem instead. The adjective 'challenging' means demanding, and is what a supervisor writes when work is hard but worthwhile.

a numbered section of a legal document, or a grammatical unit built round a verb

Two technical homes that rarely meet. In law it is a numbered provision of a contract or bill (an escape clause, under clause 7). In grammar it is a unit built round its own verb, which is why linguistics papers speak of relative and subordinate clauses. It is neither a sentence nor a phrase: a phrase has no verb of its own, and that distinction is the one exams test.

to make a problem or difficulty worse by adding something to it

Three parts of speech, and the stress moves between them: the noun and adjective stress the first syllable (a chemical COMpound, COMpound interest), the verb the second (to comPOUND a problem). The verb is the one academic prose needs most, and it always makes something worse: poverty compounded by ill health. A further noun sense names an enclosed group of buildings, common in reporting from conflict zones.

a serious disagreement, or a clash between things that cannot both hold

The stress marks the part of speech: the noun is CONflict, the verb conFLICT, and the verb takes 'with'. The phrase you will meet in every paper is 'conflict of interest', which authors must declare. 'Conflicting evidence' means evidence pointing two ways, not evidence that is mistaken. 'Armed conflict' is the standard term where a writer wants to avoid the word war.

to look something up in a source, or to ask someone for their opinion or advice

Two objects, two meanings. Consult a source (a dictionary, the archives) means look it up; consult a person or group means seek their view. American writing prefers 'consult with' a person where British writing drops the 'with'. The nouns split by sense: 'consultation' is the process, 'consultancy' the business, 'consultant' the adviser, and in British hospitals a consultant is the most senior grade of doctor.

communication between people, or the state of touching or meeting something

Everyday English uses the verb (contact the author); academic English adds two technical nouns. In linguistics 'language contact' names the situation where two languages influence each other, and in higher education 'contact hours' are the taught hours of a course. The fixed prepositional patterns are 'in contact with' and 'come into contact with'. In the plural it means useful people you know, which is too informal for a paper.

to fall steadily in number or quality, or to refuse something politely

Two senses that have drifted a long way apart, both from Latin declinare, to bend aside. The one data writing needs is to fall steadily, and it is a quieter, more measured word than 'plummet' or 'collapse'; the matching noun phrase is 'in decline'. The second is to refuse politely, and it takes a 'to' infinitive, never a gerund: he declined to comment. Note that the falling sense is intransitive, so numbers decline, they are not declined.

separate and individually distinct, rather than continuous

The highest value spelling trap on this sublist. With two separated e's it means separate and individually countable, and it is the statistical term opposed to 'continuous': discrete variables, discrete categories. 'Discreet' means tactful and careful not to draw attention, and its noun 'discretion' belongs to that word, not this one. A spellchecker accepts both, so this is a pair you have to know.

an early version of a piece of writing, or to produce such a version

The countable noun is what a supervisor reads: a first draft, an earlier draft, in draft form. The verb means to write a first version, and lawyers draft legislation. Two traps: in American usage 'the draft' is compulsory military service, and British English spells the current of cold air 'draught', and keeps that spelling for draught beer, a draught horse and the game of draughts, while this spelling covers the rest. As a modifier it is common in policy work, as in draft guidelines.

to make it possible for someone or something to do something

The pattern is object plus a 'to' infinitive: the grant enabled us to hire two assistants. It cannot take a that clause, and 'enables that' is a common error. Prefer it to 'allow' when the point is capability rather than permission. Avoid the padded 'enables the understanding of', which is one abstract noun too many; write 'helps us understand'. In computing the participle has become an adjective, as in 'JavaScript enabled'.

Uncountable in physics and in policy (consumption, renewable sources, national policy), and the plural is reserved for human effort, as in 'devoted her energies to the campaign'. The adjective is 'energetic'. Keep the two registers apart in one paragraph: in a scientific paper the word names a measured quantity in joules, while in general prose it means vigour, and sliding between them makes an argument look sloppy.

to make sure a rule, law or standard is obeyed

What you do to a rule, not to a person: enforce a law, a ban, a standard, a contract. The noun 'enforcement' is the form policy writing uses (law enforcement, enforcement action), and it is often the subject of the sentence. Do not confuse it with 'reinforce', which means to strengthen. Before a noun the participle means imposed against someone's will, as in enforced idleness.

a thing that exists as a single, separate unit

A deliberately colourless word for something that exists as a unit when you do not want to say what kind. Law and accounting rely on it because it covers people, companies and trusts at once (a legal entity, a separate entity). Philosophy and computing use it for anything you can refer to. It earns its place only when the vagueness is the point; if a more precise word exists, that word is better.

equal in value, amount or function to something else

The preposition follows the part of speech: as an adjective it takes 'to' (worth about a year's salary), as a noun it takes 'of' (the German counterpart of the GCSE). It claims equal value or function, not identity, so reach for it when two things do the same job in different systems. 'Full time equivalent' is the standard measure of staffing in reports. Avoid 'exactly equivalent' unless the equality really is exact.

to develop gradually into a different or more advanced form

Biology is only one of its homes. In general academic prose it means to develop gradually, and it is intransitive: a policy evolves, it is not evolved by anyone. 'Evolve into' marks the end point of the development. The noun 'evolution' has a weak everyday sense (the evolution of the design) that carries no Darwinian claim at all, so write 'natural selection' when that is what you mean.

to become larger or fuller, or to make something larger or fuller

Works in both directions: a company expands, and a policy expands a company. 'Expand on' is a separate pattern meaning to say more about a point, and it is what a marker means by 'expand this section'. Keep it apart from 'extend', which lengthens something in one direction, and from 'expend', which means to spend. The noun is 'expansion'.

to leave something uncovered, to make it publicly known, or to subject someone to an influence

Three senses worth separating. In experimental writing participants are exposed to a stimulus, and the noun 'exposure' appears in every methods section. In history and journalism it means to reveal something hidden, and takes a wrongdoing as its object. Physically it means to uncover. The reflexive form has an unfortunate second meaning in everyday English, so keep the passive when the subject is a person.

coming from or existing on the outside of something

The pair to 'internal', and it lives in fixed phrases: external validity, external examiner, external funding, external factors. In British universities the external examiner is a formal role, an academic from another institution who checks that standards match. 'External to' is the prepositional form, and the adverb reports how something was assessed. In statistics, external validity is the question of whether findings carry beyond the sample.

to make a process easier or more likely to happen

Its object should be a process, not a person: you facilitate learning, discussion, access, trade. Because it sounds weighty it is over-used as a long word for 'help', and if 'help' fits, use 'help'. It earns its keep when the subject is a condition rather than an agent, as in 'low interest rates facilitated the boom'. A 'facilitator' runs a workshop without teaching it, which is a real distinction in education research.

forming the base on which everything else depends

Stronger than 'important' or 'basic': it claims that everything else rests on this, and it takes 'to' when it names what depends on it. Because the claim is absolute, do not weaken it with 'very' or 'quite'. The plural noun 'the fundamentals' means the basics of a subject, and the adverb marks a disagreement about foundations rather than about details.

This sublist carries two members of one family as separate headwords, so keep them apart: this is the verb, while 'generation' beside it is chiefly the noun for a cohort of people. Its objects are things brought into being rather than made by hand: income, data, electricity, interest, hypotheses. Where a person makes something concrete, 'produce' or 'create' reads better. The passive is common in methods sections.

all the people born at about the same time, or the producing of something such as power

Listed separately from the verb 'generate' on this same sublist, and in social research it is not the noun of that verb. The dominant sense is a cohort born at about the same time (the postwar cohort, first generation migrants), and by extension a rough span of about thirty years. The technical sense of producing something survives mainly in 'power generation' and 'data generation'. The adjective 'generational' means between cohorts.

a picture or visual likeness, or the public impression something gives

Not only a picture. In media and management research the dominant sense is public reputation (brand image, corporate image, self image), so 'image management' is not about photographs. Computing uses it for an exact copy of a disk. Two adjectives from the same root mean different things and neither means 'shown in a picture': 'imagined' means invented, 'imaginary' means not real.

favouring individual freedom and openness to change, or generous and not strict

A word whose politics flip across the Atlantic. In American usage it means left of centre; in European usage and in economics it means favouring free markets and a small state, which is the sense behind 'neoliberal' and 'liberalisation'. A third sense, generous or not strict, survives in 'a liberal interpretation' and 'liberal arts'. In a paper, say which sense you are using the first time you use it.

official permission to own or do something, or the document that grants it

British English splits this pair by part of speech and pronounces both the same way. The noun is spelled with a c, as in the headword here (a driving licence, a licence to operate); the verb is spelled with an s (to license premises, a licensed practitioner). American English uses the s spelling for both. The same c and s rule runs through practice and practise, and advice and advise, where the s form is always the verb.

the study or use of valid reasoning, or the underlying reasoning behind something

Uncountable when it names the discipline or valid reasoning in general (formal logic, the logic of the argument), but countable when it names one particular way of reasoning, which is why sociology writes about competing logics. The adjective means 'following from the premises', not merely 'sensible', so 'it is logical that' is often just an opinion dressed up. The person is a logician, not a logist.

the difference between two amounts, the blank edge of a page, or the outer edge of something

Three domains, three meanings. In statistics the 'margin of error' bounds how far an estimate may be from the truth. In economics and accounting it is the gap between cost and price, hence profit margin and gross margin. On a page it is the blank edge where marginal notes live. The adjective also means slight or peripheral, and 'marginalised' means pushed to the edge of society.

relating to the practice of medicine or the treatment of illness

Not the same word as 'medicinal'. This one relates to the practice of medicine and to doctors (medical school, medical records, a medical condition); 'medicinal' describes a substance that heals, as in medicinal plants. A medicinal herb treats you; a medical herb would be one studying for a degree. In British English it is also a countable noun meaning a physical examination.

relating to the mind or to processes that happen in it

Overwhelmingly used of the mind and of health: mental health, mental illness, mental processes, mental arithmetic. The informal British sense meaning mad is offensive in any clinical context and has no place in academic writing. The noun 'mentality' describes an attitude, not a capacity, so it is not the word to reach for when you want a noun to go with this adjective. It sits before a noun and rarely takes a modifying adverb.

to change part of something in order to improve it or suit a new purpose

A deliberate, partial change to something that carries on existing: modify a design, a diet, a genome. Linguistics uses it in a quite different technical sense, where an adjective modifies a noun by narrowing its meaning. 'Genetically modified' is a fixed phrase, abbreviated GM in British sources. Set it against 'alter', which is broader, and 'amend', which belongs to documents; all three are on this sublist.

to watch or measure something regularly over a period of time

Repetition is built into the meaning: you monitor progress, blood pressure, compliance, water quality, over time. Compare 'observe', which needs no repetition, and 'supervise', which implies authority over people. The noun has two lives, a screen and a person who checks (an election monitor), and the gerund 'monitoring' is the form policy documents use most.

a set of people or things connected to one another

Everyday use covers any set of connected people or things (a rail network, a support network). Research writing adds a technical sense, a structure of nodes and links, which is what 'network analysis' and 'network density' measure. As a verb it means to build professional contacts and is informal enough that many editors keep it out of papers. The participle 'networked' means connected to others.

a belief or idea, often one the writer treats as vague or doubtful

Carries a faint scepticism that 'idea' and 'concept' do not: writing 'the notion that markets self correct' signals that you are about to question it. It is usually followed by a that clause or by 'of'. Use 'concept' for a term you are defining and this word for one you are about to attack; the plural sounds more dismissive still, and 'no notion' means no idea whatsoever.

a goal to be achieved, or based on facts rather than on personal feeling

Two parts of speech doing different work. The noun is a goal, and in the fixed pair 'aims and objectives' the objectives are the specific, measurable ones. The adjective makes a strong claim: to call a measure objective is to assert that any competent observer would get the same result, so it belongs to methods and evidence, not to opinions. Its opposite is 'subjective', and the property itself is 'objectivity'.

to point or adjust something towards a particular direction or purpose

The AWL prints this shorter form, though British writers more often say 'orientate'; both are accepted, and the longer form is rare in American prose. What you will actually write most is the past participle in compounds: market oriented, family oriented, results oriented. Used reflexively it means to work out where you are, and the noun covers both direction and the induction week for new students. Capitalised as a noun for Asia it is dated and now avoided.

a particular standpoint from which something is considered

In academic prose it names the standpoint an argument is written from, and it takes 'from' for the standpoint and 'on' for the topic: from a feminist perspective, a perspective on migration. The visual sense, depth in a drawing, belongs to art history. Do not use it as a polite word for 'opinion': a perspective is a position with reasons and a tradition behind it. 'Put it in perspective' means judge its true size.

exact and clearly specified, with no vagueness left in it

Not a synonym for 'accurate', and the difference is examinable. Accurate means close to the true value; this word means finely specified and repeatable, so a scale that always reads two kilos heavy is precise but not accurate. 'To be precise' introduces a correction, while the adverb can mean either 'exactly' or 'quite so'. The noun is 'precision'; 'preciseness' is not idiomatic.

chief or most important, or of the highest quality

Before a noun it means chief or best (the prime cause, prime minister, a prime example) and it cannot be used after 'is' in that sense. Mathematics uses it for a number divisible only by itself and one. The verb means to prepare something in advance, and in psychology 'priming' is a standard experimental technique in which an earlier stimulus shapes a later response. 'Primary' is the commoner adjective in research writing.

the scientific study of the mind and behaviour, or the mental workings behind something

The discipline is uncountable and takes no article (she studies it at Edinburgh), but 'the psychology of' plus a topic behaves as a countable phrase and is very common in titles. Watch the whole family for the silent p and the spelling shift: psychology, psychological, psychologist. The adjective does most of the work in research writing. Do not use the noun loosely to mean an attitude.

to follow or work at something over time in order to achieve it

Its objects are abstract and long term: a career, a degree, a policy, a line of enquiry, a claim through the courts. The literal chasing sense survives mainly in police and legal reporting. The noun drops the e and is spelled 'pursuit', giving the fixed phrase 'in pursuit of'. 'We do not pursue this question further here' is a standard and useful way to acknowledge work you are not doing.

the relationship between two amounts, expressed as one number compared with another

One of three words students swap by mistake. This one compares two quantities against each other and is written with a colon, as in a staff to student ratio of 1:12; the pattern is 'of A to B'. A proportion is a part of a whole, written as a fraction or a percentage. A rate is a quantity measured against time or against a population, as in a birth rate per thousand. Choosing the wrong one changes the arithmetic, not just the wording.

to refuse to accept or believe something

In quantitative writing the use is fixed and technical: we reject the null hypothesis, or we fail to reject it, and 'fail to reject' is deliberately not the same as 'accept'. Editors reject papers, and the noun for that is 'rejection'. The stress moves for the rare noun meaning a discarded item. Compare 'refuse', which answers a request, and 'deny', which answers a claim.

the money a business or government receives, before costs are deducted

Money coming in before costs are taken out, which is why it is never a synonym for profit; the equation to memorise is revenue minus costs equals profit. Usually uncountable, though the plural is normal for a government's several income streams, as in tax revenues and oil revenues. British business writing often prefers 'turnover' for a firm's total sales, and 'the Revenue' with a capital letter once named the tax authority.

not changing, and unlikely to move, fail or break down

Unchanging, and usually in a welcome way: stable prices, a stable relationship, a stable isotope, and in medicine a patient whose condition is not worsening. The noun is 'stability', which is the form policy writing uses (financial stability, price stability); there is no such word as 'stableness'. The verb is 'stabilise'. A separate noun of the same spelling is a building for horses; it reached English by its own route, though both go back to Latin stare, to stand.

a characteristic way of doing, writing or presenting something

For a student the sense that matters is the referencing convention: Harvard style, APA style, house style, a style guide, and getting it wrong costs marks. A second sense names a characteristic way of doing something (a management style, learning styles, though the learning styles theory is now largely discredited). The adjective is 'stylistic', and 'stylistics' is the linguistic study of how texts are written.

to use one thing in place of another, or the thing used in that way

The prepositions reverse the meaning, so learn them as a pair: you substitute the new thing FOR the old one, but you replace the old one WITH the new one. Writers get this backwards constantly. As a noun it is the thing standing in, and it also takes 'for'. In economics, substitute goods are ones a buyer will swap when the price of one rises. The noun for the act is 'substitution'.

to keep something going over time, or to suffer damage or loss

Two senses, one of them easy to miss. The common one is to keep something going over time: sustain growth, sustain an argument, sustained attention. The formal and legal one is to suffer something: sustain injuries, and in court 'objection sustained'. Note that 'sustainable' has drifted almost entirely to the environmental sense, so 'a sustainable argument' now reads oddly; write 'defensible' instead.

a mark, object or picture that stands for something else

Keep three near neighbours apart: a symbol stands for something else by convention (the dove for peace, Na for sodium), a sign points to it directly, and a symptom is caused by it. In chemistry and mathematics the use is purely technical. The verb is 'symbolise'. The adjective can also mean done for show rather than effect, as in a symbolic gesture, which is often a criticism.

a result aimed for, or to direct something at a particular group

In policy writing it is a stated figure to be reached by a date: set a target, meet a target, miss a target, and 'on target' means on course to reach it. The verb means to direct something at a particular group, and the participle before a noun is standard in health and marketing (targeted intervention, targeted advertising). Reports use the passive 'is targeted at' far more often than the active.

the movement of people or goods through a place on the way somewhere else

Formal, and about moving through a place rather than to it: goods in transit, a transit visa, a transit lounge. In American English it also means public transport, as in mass transit, which British readers can misread. Do not confuse it with 'transition', a change from one state to another; the AWL groups the two in one family, but they are not interchangeable. Astronomy uses it for a planet crossing in front of a star.

a general direction in which something changes over a period of time

A direction of change over time, so it needs several observations behind it; a single movement is not one. The collocations are worth memorising: an upward trend, a downward trend, a trend towards, buck the trend, and in statistics a trend line. The participle has been taken over by social media and now sounds informal, and the adjective 'trendy' is dismissive and has no place in a paper.

one form of something that differs from other forms of the same thing

Two academic uses. The edition of a document or program (a draft version, version 2.1, the final version), which a methods section must number when instruments differ between groups. And an account given from one point of view, which quietly implies that other accounts exist, so 'his version of events' is never neutral. The verb exists in software work but is jargon outside it.

the health and wellbeing of a person or group, or state support given to those in need

The meaning splits by country. British and Australian usage takes it as wellbeing in general (animal welfare, child welfare, the welfare state); American usage most often means cash benefits for poor families, and 'on welfare' carries a stigma there that the British phrase does not. It is uncountable, with no plural, and it modifies freely in social policy: welfare reform, welfare provision, welfare recipients.

A pure contrast conjunction joining two clauses of equal weight, and this is exactly why careful writers prefer it to 'while': 'while incomes rose' can be read as 'during the time incomes rose', but this word has no time sense at all. It needs a full clause on both sides, and it sits between them far more often than at the start of a sentence. Legal documents open their recitals with it in a quite separate, formulaic use.