So you should avoid using the latter.ĭifference in phrasal verb usage between academic subjects For example in medical papers investigating the effect of physical exercise, the verb exercise is used instead of the phrasal verb work out. On the other hand, phrasal verbs you should avoid are those that are informal, or commonly replaced by single verbs in other papers. Find out ('A review was done to find out factors affecting disease outcome').Give up ('Countries pledged to give up chemical weapons').Bring about ('There were successful attempts to bring about societal change').Turn out ('This turned out to be due to errors in the distribution data').Take on ('The legislation will take on an important role in shaping policies').
A LIST OF PHRASAL VERBS SOFTWARE
Set up ('A strategy was set up to train the software for automated analysis').
Make up ('Total exports made up 54% of the GDP').Go on ('A number of initiatives have been going on to tackle the problem').Carry out ('All procedures were carried out according to the guidance').Point out ('The authors pointed out that solid evidence was lacking').You may have seen these in papers already, and considered them in your own writing. The question is which phrasal verbs should you avoid, and which should you use? The following is a list of the top 10 phrasal verbs used in academic writing, extracted from our corpus analysis. For example, carry out a study is much more frequently used than do a study or perform a study. Most phrasal verbs are neutral rather than informal, and it’s sometimes more appropriate to use a phrasal verb than a single verb. What are the top phrasal verbs in academic writing?ĭespite this, phrasal verbs shouldn’t be completely avoided in academic papers. Since academic writing is anything but colloquial, this isn’t surprising.
A LIST OF PHRASAL VERBS TV
Our analysis of the Corpus of Contemporary American English shows that phrasal verbs are considerably more frequent in other genres than academic writing: up to 11 times more frequent in TV and movies subtitles, and close to 10 times more frequent in blogs/webpages and fiction. They can be commonly replaced by single verbs, such as: Phrasal verbs in academic writing vs other genresĪ common feature of phrasal verbs is that they are colloquial: think belt out (sing very loudly), harp on (complain repeatedly about something), pig out (eat a lot of food), etc. But how common are they in academic writing, and how are they used? Read on to find out. And yet in everyday speech, one should be able to use phrasal verbs such as pick up, look down, put out or hold off.