Mini-module: Grammar

Skills for Success / Academic Skills / Mini-Modules

8. Phrases

 

 

This section will look at phrases you can use in academic writing. 

A lot of the English language is made of "chunks" of words. These chunks are set phrases which are made of words that usually go together. You can adapt these common patterns or structures and use them in your writing.

There are two ways to approach these phrases: 

• you can think of them in a grammatical way as patterns or structures; or 
• you can think of them regarding the use or purposes ("functions") of the phrases. 

Let's look at both of these.

Patterns:

Patterns refers to the structure or grammar that is used in a phrase. If you can recognise the patterns in what you read, you can adapt them for your own writing. 

Academic writing avoids “I”, “you”, and “we” because they sound too conversational and informal. For this reason, many sentences in academic writing start with a third person word such as “It...”, “A...”, “One...” “There is/are...”, “This/That/These/Those...”, or a noun (often with “The”).

Functions:

Functions are the jobs that phrases or sentences carry out. For example, the phrase "It could be seen as..." has the function of being cautious. There are many other functions in academic writing, such as:

• Being Critical
• Classifying
• Comparing
• Giving definitions
• Describing Trends
• Describing Causes
• Signposting 

You can find examples of phrases for all of these functions in the Manchester Academic Phrasebank. 

Below are some examples of useful patterns you can use for academic phrases.  For the moment, we will concentrate on one function, the very important function of "being cautious". You should adapt and change these example phrases (and others that you find in your academic reading) to fit your specific requirements.

Phrase Patterns for the "Being Cautious" Function

"It ..."

For example: 

"It is commonly thought that tomatoes are fruit."

You can see the structure of this below, with some other examples that follow the same pattern.

Object	Verb (passive)			that	Sentence
It …	Be	(Adverb)	Verb	that	Sentence
It	is was	(commonly) (often) (usually) (never) (sometimes)	thought suggested hoped reported believed	that	tomatoes are fruit.  UFOs are from Venus.

 

Here is another pattern that uses "It..."

Object	Verb (passive)				That	Sentence
It	Helping verb	(Adverb)	Be	Verb	That	Sentence
It	may could might must	(commonly) (often) (usually) (never) (sometimes)	be	thought suggested hoped reported believed	that	tomatoes are fruit. spiders are insects.

 

Here is a third example

Subject	Verb	Adjective	That	Sentence
It	is appears seems	likely possible almost certain impossible	that	tomatoes are fruit.  whales are mammals.

 

Activity with "It"

Now, practise making sentences with "It..."

"A ..."

For example:

"A possible explanation [for x] is …"

Subject				Verb	Object
A / One	Adjective	Noun	(for X)	Be	Noun / Long noun
A	likely  probable  possible	explanation	(for the success of the budget)	is was	the low tax rate  austerity measures

 

Activity with "A..."

"There ..."

For example:

"There is a possibility that Smith is correct."

Subject	Verb	Object	That	Sentence
There	is	Noun	That	Sentence
There	is	a possibility  a small chance  a strong possibility no chance	that	Smith is correct.

Here is another pattern with "There ...".

Subject	Verb	Object
There	are	Quantifier (optional)	Adjective (optional)	Noun
There	are	several  many  two / three etc. no	possible  likely  suggested  probable	explanations for this result  causes for the differences between…

 

Activity with "There ..."

"These / Those ..."

For example:

"These findings need to be interpreted with caution."

Here is the structure that you can adapt:

Subject		Verb		Object
These	Noun	Helping verb	be	Adjective
These	findings  data  results  statements	must  cannot  need to  have to	be	extrapolated …  interpreted …  ignored ...

 

Activity with "These ..."

Noun / The noun

There are numerous patterns that start with a noun. Here is an example of a way to show different levels of probability:

Subject	Verb		Object
Noun	Helping verb	Verb	Adjective
Diseases of age	may  could  might  are likely to  will probably  will almost certainly	become	more common in the future.

 

Activity with Nouns

Activity with Functions

In the activity below, each question focuses on a different purpose (or function) that is commonly found in academic writing. 
In each question, pick the sentence or phrase that is the most appropriate for the given function. 

Set Phrases in All the Functions

The Manchester Academic Phrasebank has hundreds of useful phrases for academic writing. These phrases are classified into the useful functions, so it is easy to search for phrases you can use for whatever purpose you need for your work.