How Academic is your English?

The aim of this Workbook is to help you to start to analyse how far your writing in English can be

This Workbook is intended to help you take the first steps towards improving your academ

Contents
3 - Worksheet 1: Academic Vocabulary
5 - Worksheet 2: How are academic words used?
8 - Worksheet 3: Analysing Academic Writing
12 - Worksheet 4: How Academic is your Writing?
14 - What should I do next?

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Worksheet 1: Academic Vocabulary

When you encounter a text, your impression as to whether or not it can be
considered academic is usually dependent upon where you found it, i.e. in a
journal, in a textbook. Regardless of the context, though, you will generally
form an initial impression as to how academic a text is based on its choice of
vocabulary. The aim of this worksheet is to help you find out about the kind of
vocabulary most commonly found in academic writing in English, in order to
give you a basis to evaluate your own choice of vocabulary.

In this Worksheet, you will:

Find out which words are most common in academic
English;
Identify these academic words in a text;
Make use of some tools to spot these words more easily.

Introducing the Academic Word List

The Academic Word List is a list of the most common
words used in a large sample of academic texts taken from
a range of subject areas, from the physical and life
sciences to the humanities.

The list of 570 keywords are arranged into Sublists (110); Sublist 1 contains the most commonly used words,
Sublist 2 the next most common, and so on.

Each keyword is a 'family' of related words. So analyse

represents analysis, analyser, analyst, analytical, and so
on.

Task 1A: Visit the Academic Word List

i.

Visit the Academic Word List website by clicking on this link.

ii.

Take a look also at the AWL Sublist Families menu, where

you can see the various forms of the keyword families.

iii.

If you do not already have a copy of the Academic Word List, print
one here.

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Task 1B: Identifying Academic Word List keywords in a

text
For this task you will need your copy of the Academic Word List; it will also be
helpful if you have started to familiarise yourself with the words from Sublist
1, as this task will involve trying to identify them within a text. To help you with
this, we have attached to your copy of the Academic Word List some tips on
Learning Vocabulary.
i.

ii.
iii.

Go to the Using English for Academic Purposes website.

In the menu on the left-hand side, click on Efficient.
You will see a screen headed Reading skills for academic
study: Efficient reading.
Read it carefully. It contains various forms of ten keywords
from Sublist 1 of the Academic Word List.
Put a tick against each keyword you find in the Sublist 1
section of your printout of the AWL.

Task 1C: Checking your answers

There are a number of tools online designed to help students learn words
from the Academic Word List. You can now use one to check that you spotted
all the words from the AWL in the previous task.
i.

Highlight and Copy the text of Reading skills for academic

study: Efficient Reading. (Use the Edit button (top left of the screen) to
Copy the text.)

ii.

Go to the AWL Highlighter website. This will highlight

Academic Word List keywords within a submitted text.

iii.

Read the instructions there, then Paste your copied text into
the text box, and click Submit. (Move the cursor to the top of the
box. Use the Edit button again to Paste your saved copy of the Efficient
Reading text into the box.)

iv.

Your text will now show the Academic Word List keywords
highlighted in bold. You can now check the highlighted words
against your answers to Task 1B.
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Worksheet 2: How Are Academic Words Used?

Being able to identify common academic words in context will help you start
to evaluate how academic your use of vocabulary is, but this will only be
useful if you know when it is appropriate to use these kinds of words. This
worksheet will make use of some online tools which allow you to see
individual words used in a range of contexts at a glance.

In this Worksheet, you will:

learn what a concordance is;

see individual words used in a range of contexts;
use a concordance to find out when it is appropriate to use
certain words.

Investigating how a word is used

To make effective use of the Academic Word List, you need to know not only
the meaning of the words, but also how they are used. For example, one of
the keywords is restore. When you see this word, you might ask yourself the
question:
What sort of things can you restore?
One very useful web-based tool for investigating this sort of question is a
concordance - a program that searches a database of English texts for examples
using the word you are interested in. The concordance will show your word used in
lots of actual sentences, which may help you to find answers to your questions.
Here is an example for the verb restore:
restore
Here is a random selection of 5 solutions from the 1648 found...
A9U 190 Fimbra's executive and members must now restore public confidence in
the organisation responsible for policing advisers who tell investors where to invest
their money.
AKL 200 The company says it is continuing to rely on cost-cutting and internal
improvements to restore profits, rather than any upturn in demand for tyres.
AM5 1702 However, if this happens to your windows, it's still not too late to rectify
matters --; sanding will restore their former beauty, then you can work out a
treatment programme to keep them looking good.
AM9 842 We will repeal the 1981 Nationality Act, reform immigration legislation to
make it free from racial discrimination and restore the right of entry to British
passport holders.
APE 437 A clear, legally defined status of citizenship, it was argued, could help in a
number of ways to restore Britain's status as a democracy.
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Task 2A: Based on the results above, what sort of things

can you restore?
Concordances can deepen your knowledge of how English is used today, both in
writing and also in speech. They do not provide rules and explanations (as
grammar books do), or definitions (as dictionaries do).
What concordances give you is plenty of actual instances of your chosen word,
which you can analyse, to discover things about the use of English that you have
never noticed before.

Task 2B: Using a concordance

i.

Study Sublists 4 and 5 and of the Academic Word List.

ii.

Choose two or three keywords that you would like to

research.

iii.

Write these words in the box below, under the example

grant:

Target word
grant

What I want to know is

How is grant used?

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iv.

Go to the British National Corpus website.

v.

Type your word in the Look Up box and click Go.

vi.

Analyse the results carefully. Use a dictionary to check any words

in order to help you to fully understand the examples.

vii.

Repeat these steps for your other chosen words.

The examples provided should help you to answer the question

How is X used?
Whenever you look up a word in the dictionary, you may now wish
to consider also using a concordance to find out more about how it
is used.

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Worksheet 3: Analysing Academic Writing

In Worksheet 1, you encountered a tool which allowed you to highlight words
from the Academic Word List within a given text. These words are a good
starting point for academic writing, but there will naturally be many more
words used as building blocks to make a complete text. In this Worksheet,
you will use an online tool which breaks texts down into words from several
different lists, including the Academic Word List, so that you can analyse how
they are put together.

In this Worksheet, you will:

- learn how VocabProfile helps you to break down a text into its
component parts;
- use VocabProfile to analyse an academic text you are reading;
- find out what quantities of different types of words appear in your
text.
Using VocabProfile software
VocabProfile is an online program which enables you to highlight the words in
any text to sort them into the following categories, based on how frequently
they occur:

blue for words from a list of the 1,000 most frequent

green for words from the second list of 1,000
yellow for keywords from the Academic Word List
red for less common words (technical terms, names etc)

On the next page is a short example text about the importance of

noticing new words and word uses when you are learning another
language. Directly below this, you will see roughly what the
VocabProfile output for that text looks like.

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Noticing
In language classrooms, learners are surrounded by language from a variety of sources. As
tutors we want to help learners make the most of this language, known as input, so that it
enters their working systems and feeds into the learning process. Input which becomes part
of the learning process is known as intake. In psycholinguistic research, there is a particular
interest in the intake of grammar as a result of learners paying conscious attention to the
input; this kind of intake is known as noticing (Schmidt 1990).
Noticing is a complex process: it involves the intake both of meaning and of form, and it
takes time for learners to progress from initial recognition to the point where they can
internalize the underlying rule. This suggests that tutors ought to provide recurring
opportunities for learners to notice, since one noticing task is most unlikely to be sufficient.
More specifically, we may want to work with different kinds of noticing task in future, in
order to serve different psycholinguistic factors.
One such factor is the distinction between form and meaning. Tasks which require
simultaneous processing of form and of meaning may overload the learners system, leading
to less intake rather than more (Van Patten 1990). Indeed, it is often argued that learners
need to process meaning before they can go on to internalize form (Swain 1985: 248). So
perhaps it makes sense to distinguish between tasks designed simply for noticing
grammatical meanings, and tasks for making sense of form-meaning connections (Van
Patten 1994).
Research into noticing is still in its infancy, but given its importance as a gateway to
language learning, it should be a subject of vital interest for all those involved in language
teaching.

Here is what the VocabProfile output would look like for this text:
in language classrooms learners are surrounded by language
from a variety of sources as tutors we want to help learners
make the most of this language known as input so that it
enters their working systems and feeds into the learning
process input which becomes part of the learning process is
known as intake in psycholinguistic research there is a
particular interest in the intake of grammar as a result of
learners paying conscious attention to the input this kind of
intake is known as noticing schmidt number noticing is a
complex process it involves the intake both of meaning and of
form and it takes time for learners to progress from initial
recognition to the point where they can internalize the
underlying rule this suggests that tutors ought to provide
recurring opportunities for learners to notice since one
noticing task is most unlikely to be sufficient more
specifically we may want to work with different kinds of
noticing task in future in order to serve different
psycholinguistic factors one such factor is the distinction
999

between form and meaning tasks which require simultaneous

processing of form and of meaning may overload the learners
system leading to less intake rather than more van patten
number indeed it is often argued that learners need to
process meaning before they can go on to internalize form
swain number number so perhaps it makes sense to
distinguish between tasks designed simply for noticing
grammatical meanings and tasks for making sense of form
meaning connections van patten number research into
noticing is still in its infancy but given its importance as a
gateway to language learning it should be a subject of vital
interest for all those involved in language teaching

blue for words from the most frequent 1,000 list,

green for the second 1,000,
yellow for the Academic Word List, and
red for less common words (technical terms, names etc)
Task 3A: Using VocabProfile on an academic text
Open an electronic copy of an academic text you are
reading, or have read recently. You may want to use Google Scholar to

i.

find your text.

Highlight and Copy all, or part of your chosen text. (Use the

ii.

Edit -Copy icon).

iii.

Go to the VocabProfile website.

iv.

Paste your text into the box, and click SUBMIT.

v.

Scroll down on the new screen to see two columns: on the

left is the original text, and on the right is the text with the
words colour-coded:
blue for words from the most frequent 1,000 list,
green for the second 1,000,
yellow for the Academic Word List, and
red for less common words (technical terms, names etc)
You can also see alphabetical lists of the words in your text in
each category.

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In the top left of the page is a table listing the percentages of

words from each list in the text you have submitted.

vi.

Write down the percentage figures for those four categories in the
table below:

Frequency category
Words from most frequent 1,000
Second 1,000 words (1,001-2,000)
Academic Word List keywords
Off-list

Percentage in the text

In Worksheet 4 you will get the chance to compare these figures with
those generated by some of your own writing.

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Worksheet 4: How Academic is your Writing?

In Worksheet 3, you used VocabProfile to analyse a piece of academic writing
relevant to your discipline. This should give you an idea of the quantities of
each type of word which should be present in your academic writing. In this
Worksheet, you will use VocabProfile to assess how your own writing
compares with other academic writing.

In this Worksheet, you will:

use VocabProfile to categorise the words in a text you have
written;
compare your usage of different categories of words with other
academic writing.

Task 4A:
writing

Using VocabProfile to analyse your own

i.

Choose an assignment that you have written recently.

ii.

Use the Copy function in Microsoft Word to copy the text.

iii.

Go to the VocabProfile website.

iv.

Paste your text into the box, and click SUBMIT.

v.

Scroll down on the new screen to see two columns: on the

left is the original text, and on the right is the text with the
words colour-coded:
blue for words from the most frequent 1,000 list,
green for the second 1,000,
yellow for the Academic Word List, and
red for less common words (technical terms, names etc)

In the top left of the page is a table listing the percentages of

words from each list in the text you have submitted.
vi.

Write down the percentage figures for those four categories:

Frequency category
Words from most frequent 1,000
Second 1,000 words (1,001-2,000)
Academic Word List keywords
Off list

Percentage in the text

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Evaluating your writing: How 'academic' is it?

To achieve an academic style of English writing, you should aim to
use approximately the same percentages of the different
categories of vocabulary in your texts as is common in academic
books and articles.
The Academic Word List researchers analysed university
textbooks from four broad disciplines- Arts, Science, Law and
Business- and found these were typical percentages for the words
from the four frequency levels:
1 the first 1,000 most frequent words made up 75% of texts
2 the second 1,000 most frequent words
5%
3 the 570 Academic Word List keywords
10%
The remaining 10% of words in academic texts were off-list
technical terms, names of people and places, and other
uncommon vocabulary.

Task 4B: How does your writing compare?

Frequency category
Words from most frequent 1,000
Second 1,000 words (1,001-2,000)
Academic Word List keywords
Off list

Percentage in the text

75
5
10
10

Compare the percentages which VocabProfile generated for your

assignment with those above, and those you collected at the end
of Worksheet 3. How academic do you think your use of English
vocabulary is?

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What should I do next?

This Workbook should have helped you to establish how far your
use of English vocabulary reflects the way vocabulary is used in
academic writing. One way to improve your writing is by learning to
make appropriate use of new academic words, such as those
found in the Academic Word List.
You can build upon the work you have done so far by doing some
online exercises, designed to develop your ability to use keywords
from the Academic Word List, such as those below:
Dominic Coles IELTS Blog
http://www.dcielts.com/ielts-vocabulary/awl-exercises/
English Vocabulary Exercises.com
http://www.englishvocabularyexercises.com/AWL/index.htm
AWL Exercises section on Using English for Academic Purposes
http://www.uefap.com/vocab/exercise/exercise.htm

However, your choice of vocabulary is just one aspect of the way

you formulate your academic writing. There are a number of other
useful websites which offer exercises and tuition on a variety of
topics to help you to improve your academic writing. Here are a
few of the best ones:
Using English for Academic Purposes (Andy Gillett)
This is a very good all-round site for helping you to improve your academic
English. For example, it has an extensive section on writing.
http://www.uefap.com/
The Academic Phrasebank (University of Manchester)
There are extensive lists of examples of how to begin sentences: an extremely
useful resource for giving you examples of the kind of language you can use for
different purposes in your own writing.
http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/
Academic Writer (Virtual Language Centre, Hong Kong)
This site has some useful advice and exercises on different aspects of
academic writing.
http://vlc.polyu.edu.hk/academicwriter/Questions/writemodeintro.htm

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