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Key Academic Adjectives: Academic Vocabulary - Academic Word List

1) The document discusses key academic adjectives that are useful for enriching academic writing. It provides a list of common informal adjectives and their formal alternatives that are more appropriate for university-level writing. 2) Examples are given to show the typical use of some academic adjectives like "apparent," "potential," "rigorous," and "principal." 3) An exercise provides sentences for students to replace informal adjectives with their formal alternatives. This helps shift student writing to a more academic vocabulary.

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erik Montero
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147 views

Key Academic Adjectives: Academic Vocabulary - Academic Word List

1) The document discusses key academic adjectives that are useful for enriching academic writing. It provides a list of common informal adjectives and their formal alternatives that are more appropriate for university-level writing. 2) Examples are given to show the typical use of some academic adjectives like "apparent," "potential," "rigorous," and "principal." 3) An exercise provides sentences for students to replace informal adjectives with their formal alternatives. This helps shift student writing to a more academic vocabulary.

Uploaded by

erik Montero
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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KEY ACADEMIC ADJECTIVES

Academic Vocabulary – Academic Word List

Adjectives are necessary to enrich our spoken and written texts, they make our
writings and speeches more visual and vivid. Our readers and listeners will get a better
idea of what we wish them to picture. In addition; when we read a paper which is a
descriptive one, adjectives help us to illustrate the content of what we read about.
For any key adjective it is useful to note (a) whether it is typically followed by a specific
preposition, (b) what nouns it typically collocates with, (c) whether it has any antonyms
(adjectives of opposite meaning) and (d) whether it has any related nouns.

There was an apparent discrepancy between the two sets of results. We noted a
potential problem with the experimental design which we had to deal with first. The
principal cause of the failure was a sudden temperature change. The research used a
rigorous methodology which had been tested on many occasions.
1 seeming to exist or be true
2 possible when the necessary conditions exist
3 first in order of importance
4 careful to look at or consider every part of something to make certain it is correct

Exercise 1
Complete the sentences with the following adjective and noun collocates
apparent potential rigorous principal

1. Business management students subjected the data to a _________ analysis.


2. He believes that the key to memory, despite its _________ complexities, will
eventually prove to be simple: a single molecule.
3. Critics say the gold factory poses a ____________ threat to the environment.
4. The __________ structures include the municipal buildings, corn exchange,
library, public hall, and the market cross.

VOCABULARY SHIFT
When students write in academic context, sometimes it may sound childish because
of the adjectives they select. Here is a list of the most common used adjectives and
what options you use when writing for University or academic contexts.
Informal Formal (written)

a lot of, lots of many, numerous, a large number of

big large, great, high, major

small, tiny minute, insignificant

hard difficult, arduous, laborious

good suitable, appropriate, effective, efficient, beneficial,


advantageous

bad poor, inappropriate, unsuitable, ineffective, inefficient,


unsatisfactory, defective

this kind of such (a/an/Ø)


this sort of a
these kinds of

different various, a variety of; separate, individual; other

Exercise 2
Choose the formal alternative in each sentence.

1. The aim of this study is to develop an environmentally friendly and good /


effective portable energy source.

2. Nanotechnology is the art and science of manipulating matter at the atomic or


molecular scale and may lead to significant/ big improvements in technologies
for protecting the environment.

3. The novel / new characteristics of nanotechnologies may lead to unforeseen


environmental problems.

4. Timbre is difficult / hard to distinguish from other features in music.


5. Chemical syntheses typically result in bad / poor yields of desired products
with many unwanted by-products.

6. Analysis of sound can be spectral or perceptual characterization of sound. In


the perceptual analysis, accomplishing meaningful perceptual parameterization
is a very heavy / laborious task compared to its spectral counterpart.

7. A fuel cell creates electricity, which is a form of outside / external energy,


directly from the energy in chemical fuels without an intermediate / middle
conversion into thermal energy.

8. Fuel cells are almost three times as good / efficient as


conventional / regular vehicles and emit virtually no pollutants.

9. In the USA, the trend has been towards bigger / larger vehicles like
SUV’s with higher / bigger fuel consumption.

10. Many things that we are already familiar with are nanoscale and analogous
to /like applications of nanotechnology.

*Adapted from Academic Vocabulary in Use, Michael McCarthy, Felicity O’Dell, 2016.

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