Academic vocabulary is the set of words that turn up in every university subject rather than in one: analyse, approach, evidence, significant, theory. The best-known list of them is the Academic Word List, 570 word families that Averil Coxhead drew from 3.5 million words of academic text (Coxhead, 2000). Concise writing is the other half of the job: the exact word, once, with nothing to wade through.
EdCitation publishes this guide: the Academic Word List read at its source, its critics, the formal words for essays that named universities recommend, four writing centres on wordiness, and the dispute over nominalisation. Examples marked "ours" are ours. EdCitation never writes, rewrites or edits a word of your paper, and proudly so: Check your paper reads your brief's word limit into a free checklist, and every word stays yours.
Academic tone covers "I" and contractions, hedging covers how firmly to claim, and over the word limit covers cutting a whole essay.
What is academic vocabulary?
Academic vocabulary sits between everyday English and each subject's technical terms. Coxhead's list defines it by what it leaves out: the 2,000 most frequent words of English, as listed in West's General Service List of 1953; technical words that occur in only a few subjects; proper nouns; and Latin forms such as et al. and ibid. (Victoria University of Wellington, n.d.-b). What remains are words that law, chemistry and history students all meet: assess, concept, derive, interpret.
Technical words come from your subject's own reading. London South Bank University Library (2026) asks students to learn their field's terms and use them consistently, because a discipline often uses a word in its own way.
What is the Academic Word List, and how was it built?
The Academic Word List (AWL) is 570 word families in ten sublists, developed by Coxhead for an MA thesis at Victoria University of Wellington and published in TESOL Quarterly in 2000. A family is a headword with its inflections and regular derivations: analyse brings analysis, analyst, analytical and the American analyze (Victoria University of Wellington, n.d.-c). The paper is paywalled; the details below come from its abstract and the university's pages.
The corpus behind it
The Academic Corpus held about 3,500,000 running words in 414 texts of over 2,000 words each (articles, book chapters, workbooks, laboratory manuals, course notes), in four faculties (Arts, Commerce, Law, Science) of seven subjects each (Victoria University of Wellington, n.d.-a).
The three tests a word had to pass
- Range. It had to appear in all four faculties and in at least 15 of the 28 subjects. Just over 94% of the final list appears in 20 or more.
- Frequency. It had to occur more than 100 times in the whole corpus.
- Uniformity. It had to occur at least 10 times in each faculty.
Those tests come from Victoria University of Wellington (n.d.-b). By the abstract of Coxhead (2000), the list covers about 10.0% of the words in academic texts and 1.4% of a fiction collection of the same size.
The sublists
Sublist 1 holds the 60 most frequent families, covering 3.6% of the corpus: a reader meets each about every four pages. Sublist 10 holds the last 30, met about once every 82 pages (Victoria University of Wellington, n.d.-c). Sublist 1 includes data, evidence, method and significant.
What are the Academic Word List's limits?
Two lines of research have tested the list.
Words that change meaning between subjects
Hyland and Tse (2007) ran the list over a 3.3-million-word corpus from several disciplines. It covered 10.6% of the text, but its words behaved differently between subjects in frequency, collocation and meaning, and the authors recommend a narrower, discipline-based vocabulary.
An old base list, and families that mix meanings
Gardner and Davies (2014) make two criticisms. Word families lump together forms with different meanings: the verb proceeds (continues) and the noun proceeds (profits) count as one. And the AWL sits on top of a 1953 list, yet 451 of its 570 families appear among the 4,000 most common lemmas of the Corpus of Contemporary American English, and academic words already in the old list, such as market, capital and rate, were never considered.
Their answer is the Academic Vocabulary List: 3,000 lemmas from a 120-million-word academic subcorpus, covering about 14% of academic text in American and British corpora. On their comparison page, the AWL's families cover 7.2% of those texts against 14.0% for their top 570 (Davies & Gardner, n.d.): the authors' own test of their own list.
What this means for you
Learn words you will meet, recalling rather than recognising them, as Wellington's advice on using the list suggests; never use a list word to decorate an essay.
Which words should you avoid in academic writing, and what replaces them?
Avoid slang, contractions, most phrasal verbs, vague nouns and emotive words. Tweddle (2010), in Queen Mary University of London's Academic English Online, lists get, a lot of, stuff, ask for and set up; London South Bank University Library (2026) adds things and contractions; writing centres add the wordy patterns.
| Informal or wordy | Academic or concise | Why | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| get | obtain, acquire, become | Get has many meanings; pick the one you mean | Tweddle (2010) |
| a lot of | many, numerous; much, a great deal of | Much and a great deal of for uncountable nouns | Tweddle (2010) |
| ask for; set up | request; establish | Phrasal verbs read as spoken English | Tweddle (2010) |
| things | factors, elements, or the thing itself | A vague noun makes the reader guess | London South Bank University Library (2026) |
| don't | do not | Contractions are informal | London South Bank University Library (2026) |
| anticipate in advance | anticipate | The modifier repeats the verb | University of North Carolina Writing Center (n.d.-b) |
| It is vital that we delete | We must delete | An empty opening delays the subject | Duke Writing Studio (n.d.) |
| quite unique | unique | Unique has no degrees | Duke Writing Studio (n.d.) |
| past memories; future plans | memories; plans | Redundant pairs | Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d.-b) |
| The report, which was released recently | The recently released report | A clause shrinks to a modifier | Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d.-a) |
| kids, a bunch of studies | children, several studies | Slang and vague quantity | Ours |
Formal does not mean long
The guides disagree on how far to go. Tweddle (2010) counts ameliorate and obviate as suitably formal and calls likewise very colloquial; London South Bank University Library (2026) warns that a familiar word often communicates better than a specialised one; Sword (2012) warns students against believing that big words make a writer smarter. Our view: choose the formal word when it is more exact, never for length.
How do you write concisely? What four writing centres say
Write concisely by cutting what repeats, what the reader already knows and what delays the subject, then checking the meaning survived. Four writing centres agree on that and differ on details.
- UNC Chapel Hill targets redundant pairs, needless qualifiers, unnecessary modifiers and phrases that stand for one word, but lets you keep a longer sentence for emphasis or rhythm if the choice is deliberate (University of North Carolina Writing Center, n.d.-b).
- Purdue's OWL cuts filler such as kind of and particular, redundant categories such as large in size, and clauses that can shrink to one word, and asks you to replace nominalisations with verbs (Purdue Online Writing Lab, n.d.-a, n.d.-b).
- Duke puts actions into verbs and cuts it is and there are openings, but notes that the passive is more accepted in some sciences and in public policy (Duke Writing Studio, n.d.).
- Wollongong breaks ranks: nominalisation, its handout says, helps writers reduce the word count (University of Wollongong Learning Development, 2020).
UNC and Duke leave the final call to you, and your discipline's published papers settle it.
Is nominalisation good or bad academic writing?
Both. Nominalisation turns a verb or adjective into a noun: decide becomes decision.
The case for cutting it
UNC's style handout says too much nominalisation sounds abstract and makes the reader work (University of North Carolina Writing Center, n.d.-a). Duke calls strings of prepositional phrases "red flags" for it. Sword (2012) calls them "zombie nouns" that replace people and actions with abstractions, while granting that at their best they express complex ideas.
The case for keeping it
Linguists who count academic prose find it is how that prose works. Biber and Gray (2010) show, from large corpora, that academic writing is "compressed": its complexity sits in noun phrases rather than subordinate clauses. That style is efficient for expert readers but less explicit: in hazardous waste management, the reader no longer knows who manages the waste or when. Wollongong's handout lists the gains: an impersonal tone, a lower word count, room to add detail to the noun, and a sentence that opens with information (University of Wollongong Learning Development, 2020).
Which wins for you
Keep a nominalisation that names a concept you will return to, or joins two ideas in one sentence. Unpack it when it hides who did what, when of follows of, or when your reader is new to the field. Even Duke says they should not all go.
Before and after: three paragraphs of our own
Each paragraph is ours; the facts come from the sources above.
Informal to formal
Before (ours, 44 words):
Coxhead basically looked at a whole bunch of academic stuff, like 3.5 million words' worth, and got a list of 570 word families that come up a lot in all kinds of subjects. It's pretty useful, but it doesn't have technical words in it.
After (ours, 35 words):
Coxhead (2000) analysed a corpus of 3.5 million words of academic text and identified 570 word families that occur frequently across a wide range of subjects. The list deliberately excludes technical words with narrow range.
Wordy to concise
Before (ours, 42 words):
It is worth pointing out that, at the present time, there are several researchers who have raised the question as to whether or not the Academic Word List is in actual fact equally useful for students in each of the different disciplines.
After (ours, 16 words):
Researchers have questioned whether the Academic Word List serves every discipline equally (Hyland & Tse, 2007).
The opening announced a point instead of making it, and "at the present time" and "in actual fact" were filler.
Over-nominalised to clear
Before (ours, 29 words):
The exclusion of the most frequent 2,000 words by the list's developer was a consequence of the assumption of prior knowledge of West's list on the part of learners.
After (ours, 19 words):
Coxhead left out the 2,000 most frequent words because the list assumes learners already know West's General Service List.
Four nominalisations (exclusion, consequence, assumption, knowledge) became a person and two verbs.
How to check vocabulary and concision in your own draft
- Read the brief. Check your paper turns its word limit into a rule and lists its style instructions for you.
- Search for the table's informal words: get, a lot of, things, contractions.
- Circle nouns ending in -tion, -ment and -ity. Where two are joined by of, try the verb.
- Cut the openings. Every it is and there are that delays the subject.
- Check what the cuts touched. A cut sentence often carried a citation: Verify references matches every citation to the list, free.
How EdCitation helps with concise, formal writing
For turning a brief into rules, EdCitation's Check your paper is the best place to start: each rule comes back beside its own sentence, free, with no account, as our run shows. No EdCitation tool writes, rewrites or edits your paper.
What Check your paper returned on our brief
On 27 September 2026 we gave Check your paper an invented brief, written by us for this test: "Assignment 3: Critical review of a journal article. Write a critical review of 1,500 words (plus or minus 10%) of one empirical article from the module reading list. Write in formal academic English: avoid contractions, slang and unnecessary words. The abstract must not exceed 150 words and is not included in the word count. Use Harvard referencing and cite at least six sources. Submit a Word document in Arial 11 point with 1.5 line spacing."
It returned seven rules, each with its sentence: font Arial; font size 11 pt; line spacing 1.5; a word count from 1,350 to 1,650 words; at least 6 sources; citation style Harvard; and a word limit for the abstract of at most 150 words. It set one sentence aside under "What it asks you to do, which no rule can test": "Write in formal academic English: avoid contractions, slang and unnecessary words."
The arithmetic of "plus or minus 10%" is done for you; whether a word is unnecessary stays your call.
The file, and the paper against the brief
Mechanics QA (Pro, $8 a month) runs the rule-based read of the whole file: its formatting, any comment or tracked change still in it, each citation matched to the reference list, figures that disagree, and the language errors spell-checkers miss. It is rules, not a model reading your work, and every finding says which rule and what fix; the change is yours to make. Theoretics QA (Max, $24 a month) judges the paper against the brief, quoting it, and rewrites nothing. See pricing.
The references, free
Cite a source built our entry for Coxhead (2000) from Crossref's record, which gives only the first page, 213; the APA entry set the title in sentence case. We added the range, 213–238, for APA 7.
Quick questions
What is the Academic Word List?
The Academic Word List is 570 word families common across academic subjects, compiled by Averil Coxhead from 3.5 million words of text and published in 2000.
Is the Academic Word List still worth learning?
Yes, as a start. Its words shift meaning between disciplines, and the newer Academic Vocabulary List covers more text, so add your subject's own terms.
Is nominalisation bad in academic writing?
No. It compresses ideas, as expert readers expect, but can hide who did what; unpack it when the actor matters.
What are formal words for essays instead of "get" and "a lot of"?
Obtain, acquire or become for get, by meaning; many or numerous for a lot of, or much with an uncountable noun.
Can EdCitation make my writing more concise?
EdCitation never writes, rewrites or edits your paper. Check your paper turns your brief's word limit into a checklist, free, and the cutting is yours.
References
- Biber, D., & Gray, B. (2010). Challenging stereotypes about academic writing: Complexity, elaboration, explicitness. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9(1), 2–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2010.01.001
- Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213–238. https://doi.org/10.2307/3587951
- Davies, M., & Gardner, D. (n.d.). Compare to AWL. Academic Vocabulary Lists. https://www.academicvocabulary.info/compare.asp
- Duke Writing Studio. (n.d.). Revising for style: Clarity and conciseness [Handout]. Duke University Thompson Writing Program. https://wrp.duke.edu/sites/wrp.duke.edu/files/documents/clarity_conciseness_.pdf
- Gardner, D., & Davies, M. (2014). A new academic vocabulary list. Applied Linguistics, 35(3), 305–327. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amt015
- Hyland, K., & Tse, P. (2007). Is there an "academic vocabulary"? TESOL Quarterly, 41(2), 235–253. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2007.tb00058.x
- London South Bank University Library. (2026, June 9). Academic vocabulary. How to write academic English. https://library.lsbu.ac.uk/c.php?g=722188&p=5245649
- Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.-a). Changing phrases. Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/conciseness/changing_phrases.html
- Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.-b). Eliminating words. Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/conciseness/eliminating_words.html
- Sword, H. (2012, July 23). Zombie nouns. The New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/zombie-nouns/
- Tweddle, W. (2010). Academic style. Academic English Online, Queen Mary University of London. https://aeo.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/writing/academic-style/
- University of North Carolina Writing Center. (n.d.-a). Style. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/style/
- University of North Carolina Writing Center. (n.d.-b). Writing concisely. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/conciseness-handout/
- University of Wollongong Learning Development. (2020). Academic writing: Abstraction [Handout]. https://documents.uow.edu.au/content/groups/public/@web/@stsv/@ld/documents/doc/uow195600.pdf
- Victoria University of Wellington. (n.d.-a). The Academic Corpus. School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist/information/corpus
- Victoria University of Wellington. (n.d.-b). Academic Word List selection. School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist/information/principles
- Victoria University of Wellington. (n.d.-c). The sublists. School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist/information/thesublists