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25 Common Collocations for Academic English Writing
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Feb 24, 2024
This video contains the 25 most frequent collocations in academic English, plus some bonus collocations and example sentences for each. ▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 00:00 Intro 01:15 25 Collocations for Academic English 01:25 play a role (#1) 02:22 high level (#2) 02:41 low level (#13) 03:07 high quality (#12) 03:16 high rate (#19) 03:31 economic growth (#3) 03:47 economic policy (#24) 04:02 use a method (#4) 04:19 use a technique (#17) 04:27 annual report (#5) 04:39 mental health (#6) 05:00 provide information (#7) 05:26 provide evidence (#14) 05:44 have access (#8) 06:00 have potential (#11)
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This video is brought to you by eapfoundation.com, the website for all your academic English
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needs. So this video looks at collocations for academic English. A collocation is two
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or more words which frequently combine together. And the collocations in this video are taken
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from the ACL, the Academic Collocation List. And there's another video specifically about
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that list if you're interested. Now the ACL is a pretty huge list, consisting of 2,469
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collocations. Trying to learn all of those would drive you crazy. Even if you just studied
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10 per day, it would still take you 8 months to learn all of them. You could make that
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more manageable by just studying 10%, 247 collocations. 10 per day would be one month
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of study. Obviously in this video we don't have that much time, so we're just going to
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look at 1% of the collocations, which is a nice round number, 25 collocations. And we're
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not just looking at any collocations, we'll be looking at the most frequent collocations
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which should be the most useful. And in terms of frequency, they actually account for more
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than 10% of all occurrences in the BAWE, the British Academic Written English Corpus, and
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over 9% in the BNC, the British National Corpus. So let's look then at the 25 most frequent
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collocations for academic English. The first collocation in the list is a Verb
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and Noun collocation. Actually all of the top 25 are either Verb and Noun or Adjective
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and Noun combinations. And this collocation is Play a Role. And this means to be involved
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in or to have an effect on. One thing about collocations, in contrast to idioms, is that
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the meaning is usually clear. But this one and a few others are a bit tricky, so I will
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give a definition. So this is the most frequent one, it occurs 99.7 times per million words
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and it's normally followed by the word in, play a role in. And there are various adjectives
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which often combine with it. Play a central role, play a crucial role, play a key role
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play a major role, play a significant role, play a vital role. And those are actually
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some bonus collocations from the ACL. For example, gender, class and ethnicity play
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a key role in the women's movement. These genes play a vital role in health and wellbeing
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These factors play some role in climate change. The second most frequent collocation is an
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Adjective and Noun collocation, and this is High Level, occurring 62 times per million
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words. So it's about two thirds as common as play a role. High Level is normally followed
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by of. For example, there is a high level of interest in his work. I'm actually going
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to jump ahead here to number 13 in the list, which is the opposite of high level, and this
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is low level. This is quite a bit less frequent. Like high level, it's also followed by of
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For example, the chemical solution contained very low levels of alcohol. I'm going to jump
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ahead again because there are two other collocations in the top 25 using the adjective high, number
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12 and number 19. It's useful to look at these now because it's easier to remember words
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or phrases if there is some connection between them. So number 12 is High Quality. For example
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the company has been successful because it produces high quality products at a low price
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And number 19 is High Rate. Unlike high level, this is normally followed by of. The country
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has a high rate of unemployment. So let's get back on track with number three, an adjective
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noun collocation, Economic Growth. Exports make a major contribution to US economic growth
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Economic growth in developing countries is often driven by the construction industry
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I'm going to jump ahead again because there's another word in the top 25 using the adjective
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economic, and this is economic policy. For example, the main aims of the government's
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new economic policy are to keep inflation low and interest rates at appropriate levels
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Collocation number four is another verb and noun collocation, and this is use a method
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For example, a simple method was used to measure the concentration of acid in the solution
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Organic farmers use environmentally friendly methods to prevent pests and diseases. There's
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one other collocation in the top 25 using the verb use, which is almost the same meaning
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as use a method, and that's use a technique. For example, the experiment used a trial and
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error technique. The fifth most frequent collocation in the ACL is Annual Report. The recent performance
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of the company is explained in the Annual Report. Number six, another adjective noun
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collocation, Mental Health. Mental health often combines with problems or services. For example, the study showed that students who are concerned about their financial situation
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are more likely to suffer from mental health problems. The university is investing more
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in its mental health services for students. Number seven, a verb noun collocation, Provide
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Information. Provide Information is often used with about, or on, or to somebody. For
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example, this video provides information on academic collocations. The Annual Report provides
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information about the company's financial health. The warranty provides important information to consumers. There's another verb noun collocation in the top 25 using provide, and this is provide
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evidence. Provide evidence is often used with the prepositions of and for. For example
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rising sea levels provide clear evidence of climate change. Microwave background radiation
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provides evidence for the Big Bang Theory. Collocation number eight, another verb noun
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collocation, Have Access. Have access is often followed by to something. For example, almost
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half of the people in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to clean water. There's another
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verb and noun collocation in the top 25 using have, and that's have potential. Have potential
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is often followed by to plus a verb or for plus a noun, and often combines with the
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have the potential, or great, have great potential. For example, the COVID-19 virus
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has the potential to be more deadly than the 1918 flu. The city has great potential for
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further development. Number nine on the list, an adjective and noun collocation, Wide Range
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This is usually used in the phrase a wide range of. For example, there is a wide range
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of produce in any supermarket. The university provides a wide range of mental health services
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Number ten, an adjective and noun collocation, Local Authority. This is one where a definition
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might be helpful. So local authority is an organisation in charge of the public services
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for a community, and it's often used in the plural. For example, the local authorities
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are providing financial assistance to anyone affected by the recent flood. Let's jump ahead
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to number 23 in the list, another collocation using the adjective local, and this is local
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government, which means the government of a specific local area, such as a county or
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a state. For example, the local government is seeking greater financial support from
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the government in order to improve infrastructure in the region. The next collocation in the
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list is actually number 15, because we've already seen numbers 11 to 14, and this is
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social structure. This means the relationships built up by persons living within a group
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such as a family or community. I'm actually a bit surprised that this is so frequent
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but there you go. An example, the difference between the middle class and working class
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helps to develop a social structure. There's another collocation in the list using not
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social but the noun form, society, number 18 in the list, and this is modern society
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For example, ancient Greece relied on a slave economy, which does not exist in modern society
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The next collocation, number 16, an adjective and noun collocation, qualitative research
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and this means research about beliefs, meanings, etc. In other words, things which cannot be
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put into number form. And the opposite is quantitative research, which is research that
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can be put in number form, and that collocation is much lower on the list, number 248. So
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an example of qualitative research, interviews are suited to qualitative research, since
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they can enable the researcher to gain an understanding of an individual's experiences
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The next collocation that we haven't seen is actually number 20, a verb and noun collocation
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and this is take into consideration, and this means to think about something when making
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a decision. For example, the research was cancelled after it was revealed that ethical
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issues had not been taken into consideration. The judge took his previous good conduct into
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consideration when passing sentence. Collocation number 21, an adjective and noun collocation, negative effect. This is often used with the verb to have, and the preposition
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on, to have a negative effect on, and also the verb to be, and the preposition of, to
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be a negative effect of. For example, emissions from coal-fired power plants have a negative
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effect on the environment. Or the example shown in the picture, increased risk of cancer
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is one of the negative effects of smoking. Collocation number 22, another adjective and
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noun collocation, this is private sector, which means the part of an economy run by
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people or companies for profit. The opposite is public sector, which is actually number
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78 on the list, which is the part of an economy run by the government. With private and public
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sector we normally use the definite article the. For example, in order for the project
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to proceed, there needs to be a partnership between the public and the private sector
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Finally, or almost finally, number 25 on the list, an adjective and noun collocation, legal
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system. Again this is used with the definite article the. High legal fees have caused many
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people to lose confidence in the legal system. So that's the 25 most frequent collocations
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in academic English, plus a few other collocations along the way. I actually want to finish with
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two bonus collocations, number 26 and number 27, because they're in some ways connected
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and I think they're very nice and very useful collocations for student academic writing
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They're both adjective and noun collocations. The first is social responsibility. The second
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is climate change. And an example sentence combining both of these, we have a social
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responsibility to tackle the problems which are leading to climate change. For example
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by cycling instead of taking a car to work. So that's the 25, or actually 27 most frequent
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collocations in academic English. For more information please visit the website eapfoundation.com
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As always you can find a worksheet to accompany this video. Go to eapfoundation.com forward
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