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9. Academic Vocabulary

Academic vocabulary is careful or cautious and often uses words that are different from everyday ones. Three reasons for this are:

• things are complicated and we don't want to say more than we really can (or things that we don't really mean). 
• we expect our readers to be somewhat sceptical and hard to persuade and we don't want to make it easy for them to refute what we say. 
• we want to be taken seriously by other people in our academic field. Words and styles of writing vary between different academic fields, so we should probably try to show that we are really "insiders" so that readers will be more likely to think we know what we are talking about.  

Readers of academic texts are likely to study them closely and re-read them, but at the same time they could have mountains of books and papers to read. So, it is kind to the reader if you can keep your writing as short but as clear as possible. One technical term can replace two or more words from everyday English and be more accurate and clear.

When you read articles and books in your field, try to notice the words and expressions that are used.

For much more on academic vocabulary including lots of examples and essential resources, visit our Academic Vocabulary page.