1. Adverbs
Go with verbs (“changed rapidly”) or adjectives (“extremely rapid”) or other verbs (“extremely
rapidly”)
Rules for forming adverbs
- Most are made by adding -ly to adjective “clear → clearly”
- If adjectives end w -l → -ly “essential → essentially”
- If it ends with -y → -ily “happy → happily”
- If it ends with -ble → -bly “considerable → considerably”
- If it ends with -ic → -ically “basic → basically”
- Exceptions:
- “Good → well”
- Adverbs that don’t differ from their adjectives, “fast, hard, late”
Remember
- Never use “well” (meaning very” in academic writing
- Use more sophisticated adverbs instead of “very”, “really” or “a lot”
- “Really quick” → “remarkably quick”
Adverbs for commenting:
- To concede a point (“admittedly”)
- To strengthen a comment (“clearly, unsurprisingly”)
- To hedge (“potentially, apparently”)
- To imply something may not be true (“seemingly”)
2. Prepositions
= complete phrases or form a relationship between words in a sentence
Features:
- Indicate time, movement or place “over, towards, beyond”
- Go with verbs, adjectives or nouns “believe in, different from”
- In common phrases “on account of, in contrast to”
- With phrasal verb “carry out, draw on”
How to use prepositions in academic writing?
- To report information “point out, agree to”
- To describe research/study “do a study on, centre on”
- To describe data/results “align with, correlation between”
- Discuss advantages/disadvantages “be of benefit to”
- To define “specific to, distinguish between”
- To discuss cause and effect relationships “result in, implications of”
- To give reasons and explanations “account for, contribute to”
,Sometimes you need to use “the fact (that)”: “Focus on the fact that the results looked
misleading”
Prepositional phrases
- “In someone’s view”, “from someone’s point of view”, “in the view of”
- “In view of” = “because of”
- “With a view to” = “with the aim of”
- “With the exception of”, “except for” = “apart from”
- “In line with”, “in keeping with” = “consistent with”/”in the same style as”
- “With regard to” = “in connection with”
- “In terms of” = clarify issue you want to discuss
- “In respect of”, “with respect to”, “ in connection with” = “on the subject of”/”regarding”
- “On account of”, “in the light of” = introduce reason or explanation
- “On reflection” = “thinking about it”
- “In retrospect”, “with hindsight” = “looking back”
Common mistakes
- Sometimes different prepositions go with the same word
a. “Provide + for + somebody” and “provide + with + something”
- Sometimes words have no preposition at all
b. Highlight on = focus on
c. Enhance on = improve on
d. Compromise of = consist of
e. Eliminate out
- Sometimes object comes between verb and its preposition
f. “We have devoted our time to it”
g. “The noise distracted me from the task
3. Singular or plural subjects and verbs
1. Group nouns
a. “Polic, class, government, staff, population, etc.”
b. If word is used to refer to group as single unit → singular verb
i. “A child’s family has a huge influence on his or her education”
c. If word is used to refer to various members in group → plural verb
i. “The child’s family were not all living in the same house”
d. “Police” → always plural
e. “Everybody, everyone, nobody or no one” → always singular verbs
2. Numbers
a. Use singular with “the number of” but plural with “ a (small/large) amount of”
b. “The average” → with singular verb
c. Fractions, percentages and proportions → verb agrees to noun nearest to it
Subjects ending with “s” → singular “Economics is a difficult subject”
,Different meaning → plural “The economics of this proposal make it impractical”
4. Correct tense formation
1. Present continuous ongoing actions
2. Present simple present states, truth
3. Past simple referring to time in the past and completed at that time
4. Present perfect time mentioned includes past and perfect
5. Past continuous action continuing at particular point in past
6. Present perfect continuous continuing for period in past and still happening now
“Has been running for two years now”
7. Past perfect sth that happened before or until particular time in past
“Had risen slightly by 1990”
8. Past perfect continuous “had been suffering prior to this date”
5. Using more than one verb tense
Reporting information in academic writing
The researchers reported that …
- The results look remarkably consistent the results looked remarkably consistent
- We are analysing the results they were analysing the results
- The experiments were successful the experiments had been successful
- We have formed certain conclusions they had formed certain conclusions
- The results will have important effects the results would have important effects
6. Gerunds and infinitives
Gerund = verb that ends with “-ing” “losing”
Infinitive = to + verb “to improve”
Verbs followed by the gerund
Examples of verbs that you can be followed by the “-ing” form of another verb
Deny, justify, avoid/resist/delay, consider/contemplate, imagine, dislike/resent, suggest,
recommend/discuss, involve/mean/entail, risk, mention/describe, anticipate
- “Union representatives denied causing the talks to break down.”
Verbs followed by the infinitive
Examples of verbs that can be followed by the infinitive form of another verb
Threaten, demand, refuse, agree, decide, choose, claim, pretend, promise, guarantee,
Undertake, attempt, fail, manage, plan, intend, aim, mean, wish, want
- “Workers demanded to have longer holidays and threatened to go on strike.”
Verb + object + infinitive
, Want, expect, encourage, urge, persuade, convince, invite, warn, advise, force, drive,
Compel, oblige, enable, teach, allow
- Union leaders encouraged members to accept the deal.
Remember! The verbs make and let are followed by an infinitive without “to”:
- “No amount of persuasion would make the workforce agree.”
To + “-ing”
- “Managers could not adapt to working in those conditions.”
7. Relative clauses: who, which, that, etc.
“Brunel was the engineer who first realised the potential of wider tracks for higher-speed
trains.”
- The clause in bold is the relative clause, and the word “who” is a relative pronoun.
Rules: Two types of relative clause
1. Defining relative clauses, where the information in the clause is essential to the sentence
a. “The integrated circuit was the key development that led to the personal
computer.”
b. Without relative clause → sentence would lose its meaning
c. “That” may be used instead of “which, who and whom”
2. Non-defining relative clauses, where the information in the clause is useful, but
additional:
a. “Optical fibres, which have a much higher capacity than copper cables, have
revolutionised the telecommunications industry.”
b. Without the relative clause → still conveys its basic meaning
c. Cannot replace “which, who or whom” with “that” and the clause itself must be
separated from the rest by commas.
Who and whom
- Whom is normally used in formal writing when it is the object of the clause and always
after prepositions such as by, for, from, to, with, etc.
Whose and which
- Whose + noun shows possession for people and things
- Of which used when writing about things
- Way in which and extent to which
- Where instead of in which with the words place, area, situation, etc.
8. Participles
- A present participle form of verb ending with “-ing” “facing”
