Which academic nouns and phrases are best?

Now that we’ve discussed and exemplified the functions of nouns, how to identify this word class and its various types, and how to follow the rules which are most important for creating grammatical sentences, this fifth and final lesson now focuses on the accurate use of nouns in academic contexts. Because there are particular nouns and associated expressions which are more suitable when studying academically – such as when conducting research or writing university-level assignments, we’ve provided some of the most common academic nouns and expressions for you below. Consider bookmarking or printing these words and phrases so that you can refer back to this language with ease.

150 Common Academic Nouns:

ability, achievement, advantage, amount, analysis, application, argument, association, assumption, attempt, author, awareness, balance, bias, category, cause, characteristic, classification, colleague, combination, community, comparison, complexity, compromise, concept, concern, conclusion, contrast, control, convention, country, creation, crisis, criticism, culture, data, definition, degree, demand, determination, difficulty, dilemma, disadvantage, discussion, distinction, diversity, effect, environment, evidence, example, exception, exclusion, existence, experience, experiment, explanation, fact, factor, failure, finding, form, formation, function, hypothesis, idea, identity, impact, importance, improvement, increase, influence, insight, instance, institution, introduction, investigation, isolation, issue, knowledge, level, likelihood, limit, limitation, maintenance, majority, material, means, measure, medium, motivation, movement, notion, number, observation, occurrence, opportunity, option, organisation, participant, past, percentage, population, position, possibility, potential, practice, presence, procedure, process, quality, range, rate, reality, reasoning, recognition, reduction, reference, relation, relationship, research, result, review, rise, sample, scale, scheme, scope, search, section, significance, similarity, situation, source, space, spread, standard, statistics, summary, task, technique, tendency, theory, tolerance, topic, trend, use, validity, variation, viewpoint, volume

15 Common Academic Phrases:

“The greatest achievement of the study was its research methodology.”

“It’s important to avoid bias when analysing and comparing results.”

“One criticism of Smith’s (2010) research is that the sample was not large enough.”

“This methodology, however, has a number of disadvantages.”

“The experiment was conducted in three ways to triangulate the results.”

“Jones’s (2016) hypothesis is interesting for three reasons.”

“When investigating the variables in isolation, a clearer pattern emerges.”

“Many researchers publish articles to add to the pool of global knowledge.”

“The majority of studies did not find such consistent results, however.”

“McKenny’s (2009) observation about pollution levels appear to be correct.”

“A greater percentage of users reported feeling unwell after twenty minutes.”

“The relationship between these two variables is still somewhat unclear.”

“One thing that is undoubtable is the significance of this research.”

“Children have the tendency to limit the efficacy of questionnaires.”

“The validity of the study can be investigated in a number of ways.”

Well done on completing our short course on nouns. You may now wish to check your knowledge and understanding by accessing and completing our professionally made beginner, intermediate and advanced worksheets on this topic.