Academic Word List (AWL)

a short summary placed at the start of a research paper or conference proposal

Three words in one, and the stress tells them apart: the noun AB-stract (the summary at the head of a paper, normally 150 to 300 words, written last but read first) and the adjective AB-stract (existing as an idea, the opposite of concrete), against the verb ab-STRACT, to draw something out or summarise it. You write, submit or read one; a conference calls for them. 'In the abstract' means in theory, away from any real case.

correct in every detail, matching what is really the case

Worth separating from 'precise', because measurement writing keeps them apart: accuracy is closeness to the true value, precision is how tightly repeated readings cluster, so an instrument can be precise and still wrong. Collocates with account, description, measurement, estimate and reflection, and takes 'to within': accurate to within two per cent. The noun is 'accuracy', the adverb 'accurately'.

to admit that something is true, or to state publicly that you received help

Two academic jobs. It concedes a weakness ('the authors acknowledge that the sample was small'), which is how a discussion section earns trust rather than losing it. And it credits people: the Acknowledgements are the short paragraph naming funders and readers, and the spelling keeps the 'e' in British usage, acknowledgement. 'It is widely acknowledged that' is a hedge, and reviewers will ask by whom.

a total formed by combining many separate figures

The pronunciation splits by part of speech: the noun and adjective end in a reduced AG-ri-gut, the verb in a full AG-ri-gayt, and the stress stays on the first syllable throughout. Economics uses it constantly (aggregate demand, aggregate supply), and 'in aggregate' means taken all together. Its opposite in data work is 'disaggregate', to split a total back into its groups, which is what a reviewer asks for when a headline figure hides the pattern.

to give out a share of something limited to a person, group or purpose

It divides a limited pool among competing claims, so it pairs with resources, funding, time, places and beds, and the pattern is allocate X to Y. In trial reports it is the standard word for putting people into conditions: randomly allocated to treatment or control. Compare 'assign', also on this sublist, which hands a specific task or value to one person or item and carries no sense of a scarce pool.

to give a task, value or category to someone or something

Two patterns, both common: assign something to someone, or assign someone something. Coding work leans on it heavily, since you assign a code, a category or a value to each case. The noun 'assignment' means a piece of marked coursework in British and American universities alike, which is not the meaning of the verb. Compare 'allocate' elsewhere on this sublist: that one shares out a limited supply.

to fasten one thing to another, or to connect something to a larger whole

The literal sense fastens one thing to another and takes 'to'. The figurative one is the academic workhorse: to attach importance, weight or significance to something, which is how you say what a school of thought values without claiming it yourself. Two nouns pull apart: an email attachment, and attachment in developmental psychology, where attachment theory is a named body of work.

the person who wrote a book, paper or other text

Academic publishing gives it a technical edge: the first author did most of the work, the corresponding one fields queries, and a co-author shares the credit. Referring to yourself as 'the present writer' or 'the writer of this essay' is old-fashioned; most style guides now prefer plain 'I' or 'we'. The verb, to author a report, is disliked in careful prose, where 'write' does the same work.

a close connection between people or things, or a certificate of debt issued to raise money

One shape, four fields. In finance a bond is a tradable IOU, and government bonds are where money goes when shares look risky. In chemistry atoms form covalent or hydrogen bonds. In psychology and sociology it is a close tie between people, as in the mother and infant bond or bonds of kinship. As a verb it takes 'with' for people and 'to' for surfaces.

lasting or taking only a short time, or short in words

Three parts of speech worth keeping straight. The adjective means short, and 'in brief' introduces a summary. The verb means to give someone the information they need before they act, and it is the standard word for what happens to participants before a study, with 'debrief' afterwards. The noun is a set of instructions: a design brief, and in British law the papers handed to a barrister.

having the ability or the power to do something

The pattern is the thing learners get wrong: capable OF doing, never capable to do. Compare 'able', which takes the infinitive, able to do. Used of equipment and systems it states what something can achieve; used of a person on its own it is warm but measured praise, closer to competent than to brilliant. The noun is 'capability', which policy documents use for what an organisation could do if asked.

to quote or refer to a source as evidence or authority

Three homophones and only one of them belongs in your bibliography: cite is to name a source, 'site' (on sublist 2) is a place, and 'sight' is vision. The noun is 'citation', and a highly cited paper is one others keep naming. Use 'as cited in' when you have read the quotation only in someone else's work. A second sense gives a reason: the minister cited cost.

to work together with others towards a shared purpose

British writing still often hyphenates it, co-operate, and older texts use a diaeresis; the solid spelling is now standard everywhere. The pattern is cooperate with someone on something. The adjective 'cooperative' describes willing behaviour, but a cooperative is also a business owned by its members, which matters in development and agricultural economics.

to tell two things apart, or to treat one group unfairly

The preposition tells you which sense you are in, and both are academic. Discriminate BETWEEN two things is the neutral statistical sense, to tell them apart: a test with good discriminating power, discriminant validity. Discriminate AGAINST a group is the social sense, to treat it unfairly, and it is the one the noun 'discrimination' carries on its own. Never write the neutral sense without 'between', or readers will hear the other one.

to show something so that it can be seen or examined

In a results section it is the neutral verb for putting information where a reader can see it: results are displayed in Table 2, figures display a trend. A second sense belongs to clinical and behavioural writing, where a person displays symptoms, aggression or a preference, meaning they show it outwardly whatever they feel inside. As a noun it is a screen or an exhibition, and objects are 'on display'.

made up of many different kinds, or of people from many backgrounds

It describes a group, never one person: a diverse workforce is made up of different kinds of people, but 'a diverse student' says nothing. The commonest frame is 'a diverse range of', which is often padding, since the range is what varies. The noun is 'diversity', the verb 'diversify'. In ecology it is measured, not asserted, by an index of species diversity.

an area of knowledge or activity over which someone has control or expertise

The academic use marks a boundary: something falls within or outside the domain of a study, a discipline or an authority. 'Domain knowledge' and 'domain-specific' describe expertise that does not transfer between fields. Two fixed senses stand apart: in mathematics the domain of a function is the set of inputs it accepts, and 'the public domain' means free of copyright, which is a legal fact rather than a synonym for publicly known.

to prepare a text for publication by correcting and shaping it

Editing reshapes a text, cutting and reordering; proofreading only catches errors, and confusing the two undersells the work. The citation form is the one to learn: an edited volume is a book of chapters by different hands, cited as Smith (ed.) or Smith and Jones (eds). A journal editor decides what is published, and an editorial is the journal's own signed opinion piece.

to improve the quality, value or extent of something already present

It improves something that already exists, so you enhance performance, understanding, reputation or an image, but you cannot enhance something into being. That restriction is what makes it more precise than 'improve' rather than merely grander, and it is why 'enhanced' attached to a photograph or a recording raises a question about what was done to it.

a large piece of land in one ownership, or everything a person owns at death

British and American usage diverge sharply. In Britain a housing estate is a planned residential development, often council built, and an industrial estate is what Americans call a business park; an estate agent sells houses, where American English says realtor. Shared by both: a large landholding with a house on it, and everything a person owns at death, which is what probate deals with. 'Real estate' is property as an asset class.

to be greater than a stated limit, amount or expectation

Only three English verbs end in -ceed, and two of them are on the AWL: exceed, proceed and succeed. Almost everything else takes -cede - the one exception is 'supersede' - which is why 'precede' looks wrong next to it. Collocates with a limit, a threshold, a target and expectations. Do not reach for 'excessive' as its adjective: that branch of the family is a judgement, meaning too much, where exceeding a figure is only a measurement.

someone with deep knowledge or skill in a particular field

Takes 'on' or 'in': an expert on medieval law, an expert in statistics. It is also an adjective, as in expert testimony, expert review or an expert panel, which is a named method in fields where hard data are thin. The noun 'expertise' is uncountable, so write 'considerable expertise', not 'an expertise'. Appealing to expert opinion is evidence of a weaker kind than data, and reviewers grade it that way.

stated openly and in detail, leaving nothing to be inferred

Half of a pair you need both halves of: explicit is stated openly, implicit is left to be inferred, and 'making implicit assumptions explicit' is what a theory chapter is for. The everyday sense, sexually graphic material, is far enough from the academic one that context always resolves it. 'Explicitly' is the adverb; 'explicate', to unfold an argument in detail, is a separate and rarer verb.

relating to the central government of a country made up of states or provinces

It names one level of government in a country whose power is divided between a centre and its states or provinces: the United States, Germany, Canada, Australia, India, Brazil. In American writing it often just means national, as in federal funding or federal law. In European Union debate the related noun 'federalism' is politically loaded, so quoting who used it matters as much as what it means.

a sum charged for a professional service, for admission or for a course

Distinguish the near neighbours, because the choice signals what kind of payment it is: a charge for a professional service or for entry, a fare for transport, a fine as a penalty, a subscription for continuing access. Tuition fees dominate education research, and in Britain a fee-paying school is a private one. 'Fee for service' names a whole model of paying doctors, contrasted with capitation and salary.

able to change or be changed easily to suit new conditions

The physical sense bends; the abstract one adapts, and that is the one policy and management prose runs on, in flexible working, flexible contracts and a flexible approach. Treat it as a claim needing support, since flexibility for an employer and flexibility for a worker are often opposites. The noun is 'flexibility', and the verb 'flex' has drifted into business jargon.

A connector that adds a further point in the same direction, one step more emphatic than 'also' and interchangeable with 'moreover'. It opens a sentence with a comma after it, or sits between commas after the subject. Two warnings: it must add a genuinely new point rather than restate the last one, and starting every paragraph with it is one of the clearest markers of a padded essay.

the social and cultural roles associated with being male or female

Most social science keeps it distinct from sex: sex refers to biological categories, gender to the social roles and expectations built on them, which is why a questionnaire should not use the two as synonyms. Common frames are the gender gap, gender equality and gendered language. Linguistics uses the word differently again, for noun classes in French or German, where it has nothing to do with people.

lacking knowledge of a particular fact or subject

A register trap. In formal writing it simply means not knowing something, and takes 'of' or 'about': ignorant of the regulations. In everyday British speech it is an insult meaning rude and ill-mannered, with no connection to knowledge at all. Because a reader may hear either, keep it to the 'ignorant of something' frame, where only the neutral sense is available, and never leave it bare of a complement; 'unaware of' and 'unfamiliar with' say the same thing with no risk at all. The noun 'ignorance' is milder.

something offered that gives people a reason to act in a particular way

Economics treats incentives as the mechanism behind behaviour, so the useful phrases are technical: financial incentives, incentive structure, and above all a 'perverse incentive', a rule that rewards the behaviour it was meant to stop. The pattern is an incentive to do something or for someone. The verb 'incentivise' is business jargon and reads badly in a paper; 'encourage' or 'reward' will usually do.

how often something new occurs in a population over a period of time

Three words that sound related and are not interchangeable. Incidence is a rate, the number of NEW cases arising in a population over a period, and epidemiology contrasts it with prevalence, the total existing at one moment. An 'incident' is one event. An 'instance' is an example of something. A high incidence of X is a statistical claim and needs a denominator; 'many incidents of X' is a count and does not.

to include something within a larger whole so that it becomes part of it

The preposition is 'into': you incorporate a variable into a model, or reviewers' comments into a draft. What separates it from 'include' is that the added part is absorbed and changes the whole, rather than sitting inside it as a listed item. A quite separate legal sense means to form a company, which is where the American 'Inc.' after a company name comes from.

a measure combining several figures into one number, or an alphabetical list of contents

Two plurals with a real division of labour: 'indices' for measures in mathematics, statistics and economics (price indices, indices of deprivation), and 'indexes' for the alphabetical lists at the back of books, though indices is also found there. The measurement sense matters most academically: a composite index folds several variables into one number, as body mass index does. As a verb it also means to tie a payment to a measure, hence index-linked pensions.

to slow down or prevent a process, growth or action

Do not confuse it with 'prohibit', which forbids: inhibiting slows or holds back, it does not ban. Biochemistry uses it constantly, and the noun 'inhibitor' names whole classes of drug, as in ACE inhibitors. In behavioural writing the pattern is inhibit someone from doing something. Its natural opposites are 'promote' and 'facilitate', which is worth knowing because reviewers expect the pair.

It starts something that then runs on by itself, which suits processes, proceedings, contact and treatment; for a single action 'begin' or 'start' is better and shorter. Note that the family member you will meet most in policy writing is the noun 'initiative', a planned scheme, and in the idiom 'take the initiative', to act first without being told. The stress falls on the second syllable, i-NISH-ee-ayt, and the last one keeps its full vowel even though it carries no stress.

what is put into a process or system, such as data, resources or effort

Two technical homes and one everyday use. In economics inputs are what production consumes, paired with outputs, and input-output analysis is a named method. In computing it is the data a program receives. The meeting-room sense, 'thanks for your input', is fine in speech and vague on paper; say what the contribution was. The verb keeps 'input' as its past tense more often than 'inputted'.

to teach someone a skill, or to tell someone officially to do something

Method sections use it for the standard formula 'participants were instructed to', which reports an order given, not teaching. The teaching sense takes 'in': instruct students in basic statistics. The nouns split by number: 'instruction' uncountable means teaching, 'instructions' plural means directions to follow. British legal usage adds a third sense, where to instruct a solicitor is to hire one.

The adjective is straightforward; the noun 'intelligence' is not, because it means both mental ability and information gathered by a state, so intelligence services collect intelligence about, not reasoning power. Keep 'intelligible' well apart: that means capable of being understood. Applied to machines the word is a metaphor, and 'artificial intelligence' names the field rather than settling whether anything in it thinks.

a gap in time or space between two points or events

The statistical collocation is the one that earns marks: a 95 per cent confidence interval, the range of values a sample is consistent with, and if it excludes zero the effect is significant at that level. Everyday use covers gaps in time or space, as in 'at regular intervals'. In a British theatre or concert the interval is what American English calls the intermission.

a formal talk given to teach a large audience, usually at a university

British universities teach through lectures, seminars and tutorials, and the job titles matter for anyone reading a staff page: a lecturer in the United Kingdom holds a permanent academic post, roughly what the United States calls an assistant or associate professor, whereas an American lecturer is often on a teaching contract. As a verb, to lecture in a subject is to hold that post and teach it, but to lecture SOMEONE is unfriendly and means to tell them off at length.

to move from one region, country or system to another

Three verbs share the root and the direction sets them apart: emigrate FROM a country, immigrate TO one, migrate simply moves between them, which is why 'migrant' is the neutral term when direction is not the point. Birds migrate seasonally and return. Computing has borrowed it wholesale, so you migrate data or a system to a new platform, and that sense is now as common in print as the human one.

the smallest amount or level that is possible, allowed or recorded

The Latin plural 'minima' is standard in mathematics and the sciences, where a curve has local minima; 'minimums' turns up in everyday writing. Do not swap in 'minimal', which means very small rather than smallest possible: a minimum wage is a legal floor, a minimal effect is a weak one. Fixed phrases include a minimum of, at a minimum, and keep something to a minimum.

a government department headed by a member of the cabinet

A government department in most of Europe and much of the world, headed by a minister. British practice is mixed and inconsistent: the Ministry of Defence sits alongside bodies called the Department for Education or the Home Office. The United States has none at all, using departments under secretaries, so translating a foreign ministry as a department is often the right move. A separate religious sense means the work of the clergy.

the underlying reason that makes someone act as they do

Three lookalikes to keep apart. A motive is the reason someone acted, and history and criminology run on it: an ulterior motive, the profit motive. 'Motivation' is the psychological drive to keep going, measured in education research. A 'motif' is neither: it is a recurring image or theme in a text or a piece of music. Attributing motives to historical actors is a claim about evidence, so hedge it.

not supporting either side, or having no strong quality of its own

One word across several fields: taking no side in a conflict, having no strong colour, and in chemistry sitting at pH 7, neither acid nor alkaline. Academic style prizes neutral wording, especially in survey items, where a leading question buys the answer it wants. But be careful claiming neutrality for research itself: whether any inquiry can be value-neutral is a live argument, not a given. The noun is 'neutrality'.

A concession marker: it grants the previous point and holds the line anyway, which is exactly what a discussion section does with a limitation. 'Nonetheless' is interchangeable; 'however' is weaker and more neutral. It opens a sentence followed by a comma, or sits between commas after the subject, and unlike 'but' it joins sentences rather than clauses, so a full stop or semicolon comes before it.

in or to a country across the sea, from the speaker's point of view

Both an adjective before a noun and an adverb after a verb, but never a noun. It is a British-leaning word: British universities have long spoken of overseas students, though 'international' is now generally preferred, and 'foreign' sounds cold in the same slot. American English usually says abroad, or international for people. Fixed uses include overseas aid and overseas territories.

to come or happen before something else in time or order

The pair to get right, since the two are near-homophones with opposite jobs: this one comes BEFORE, while 'proceed' on sublist 1 carries ON, and the endings are spelled differently, -cede against -ceed. The participle 'preceding' is the one you will write, as in the preceding chapter. The noun 'precedent' belongs to law and means an earlier case that binds later ones, which is why 'unprecedented' is a strong claim.

to suppose something is true because it is likely on the available evidence

Not a synonym for 'assume' on sublist 1, and the difference is evidence. You assume something as a starting point whether or not it is likely, in order to build an argument on it; you presume something because the evidence makes it probable. That is why the law says presumed innocent and presumed dead. 'Presumably' is a useful hedge, while 'presumptuous' has slid to a third meaning, overstepping your place.

based on reason rather than emotion, and internally consistent

Guard the final 'e': a 'rationale' is a noun meaning the reasons behind a decision, stressed on the last syllable, rash-uh-NAHL, and 'the rationale for the study' is a standard section heading. The adjective anchors rational choice theory in economics, where a rational actor is defined by consistent preferences rather than by good sense. Mathematics uses it for numbers expressible as a fraction. 'Rationalise' means either to make efficient or to explain away.

to return to a normal state, or to get back something lost

Two senses that differ in construction, both from Latin recuperare, to get back: to get better after illness or a setback, which is intransitive and takes 'from', and to get something back, which is transitive, as in recover costs, recover data or recover remains. Economics uses the first of markets. The noun 'recovery' covers both, and in addiction research 'in recovery' is a term of art. Written with a hyphen, 're-cover' means to cover something again.

to make something known that was previously hidden or unknown

A strong claim verb: it says the finding was hidden and now is not, which commits you to more than 'suggest', 'indicate' or 'show'. Use it when the evidence is decisive and hedge when it is not, because reviewers read 'the results reveal' as an assertion of certainty. Collocates with a pattern, a difference, a mechanism, and takes a that-clause. The noun 'revelation' is emphatic and slightly theatrical.

the range of things a piece of work covers, or the room available for something

Two senses, both useful in a thesis. The first is coverage, and 'a full account lies beyond the scope of this paper' is the standard, unembarrassed way to declare a limit. The second is room for something, as in scope for improvement, which takes 'for' and a noun or gerund. Project work adds 'scope creep', the slow expansion of what was agreed. The verb, to scope something out, stays informal.

An economics term with a precise shape: money from government that holds a price below what the market would charge, so the buyer pays less and the state makes up the difference. Distinguish a grant, paid once to an organisation for a purpose, and a tax break, which forgoes revenue rather than spending it. The plural is subsidies, the verb 'subsidise' in British spelling and 'subsidize' in American.

a long narrow strip used for sticking, measuring or recording

The recording sense is fading with the technology but survives in method sections, where interviews are taped and transcribed; 'recorded' is now the safer word, since nothing has passed through actual tape for years. Other senses stay current: adhesive tape, a tape measure, and the idiom 'red tape', meaning official procedure so heavy it obstructs, named after the ribbon that once tied legal bundles.

to follow the course or origin of something back through time or evidence

The humanities verb for following a line back through evidence: this chapter traces the idea to its origins, traces the development of a practice. It takes 'back to' and 'to'. Public health uses it differently, for finding people, as in contact tracing. The plural noun means tiny quantities, so trace elements are present in amounts barely detectable, and 'without trace' means leaving no sign at all.

to change something completely in form, nature or appearance

A strong verb that policy prose has worn thin, so keep it for change that alters the nature of the thing, not for improvement. Statistics gives it a precise second life: to transform data is to apply a function to every value, and a log transformation is the standard fix for skewed distributions before analysis. The noun is 'transformation'; 'transformative' is a claim about impact and needs evidence behind it.

the system of moving people and goods from place to place

The stress moves: the noun is TRANS-port, the verb trans-PORT. British English uses this noun for the system as a whole, as in public transport and transport policy, where American English says transportation. History gives the American word a further sense, since transportation was the punishment of exile to a penal colony, which is why British convicts were transported to Australia.

to be the hidden cause or basis of something visible

Irregular and rarely written in full: underlie, underlay, underlain, and the participle 'underlying' is the form you will actually use, in underlying assumptions, causes and mechanisms. Two traps sit next to it. 'Underlay' is also a noun for the padding beneath a carpet. And 'underline' is a different verb altogether, meaning to draw a line beneath something or to emphasise it, which is almost the opposite of lying hidden.

to put something to practical use, especially a resource

Kept in the British spelling (American: utilize). Be honest about it: nine times in ten 'use' is the better word, and reaching for the longer one is the single clearest sign of padded prose. It earns its place only where the point is putting a resource to work, especially one not designed for the job, which is why physiology keeps it: cells utilise glucose. The noun 'utilisation' is standard in health economics for how much of a service is taken up.