ABSTRACT
To read and write academic papers effectively, students need to be familiar with the rather formal vocabulary widely used in this area. This chapter focuses on nouns and adjectives. It is easy to confuse the noun and adjective form of words such as possible and possibility. The first sentence uses the nouns efficiency and precision. The second uses adjectives: precise and efficient. Although the meaning is similar, the first sentence is more formal. Effective academic writing requires accurate use of both nouns and adjectives. Students wishing to develop their academic vocabulary should study the academic word list (AWL). This is a list of 570 items commonly found in academic texts across various disciplines, created by Averil Coxhead.
