Academic Composition II—TIU

Corpus practice with collocations and formal language

1. Go to www.wordandphrase.info
2. Click on “Frequency List” on the left side of the page.
3. Enter words into the “Word” box to find collocations for them.
4. Tick the part of speech of the word you are searching.
5. (For our class, click the “Academic” genre column in the bar graph).
6. Record 3 (minimum) collocation words for the given part of speech.

Example: Search “effect” as a noun (n). Record the adjectives and verbs that collocate with effect as a
noun.
Target word Collocations
Adj: significant, main, positive, negative, profound
1. Effect (n)
V: produce, create, determine

Target word Collocations

Adj: major, key, significant, other

2. Factor (n)
V: relate, associate, identify

Adj: lagrangian, ingrained, amenable, dynamic

3. Change (n)
V:
Tire, diapers, diaper

4. Consider (v) N: America, Obama, implication, option

5. Reject (v) N: argument, claim, voter, offer

6. Restrict (v) N: law, use, right, freedom, abortion

Adj: professional, practical, sound, helpful

7. Advice (n)
V: give, offer, provide, follow, heed

8. Affect (v) N: change, factor, health, ability

9. Adopt (v) N: rule, standard, resolution, measure

NOW YOU TRY WITH WORDS OF YOUR CHOICE! Look up your own words of choice from your essays,
other classes, the course textbook, etc. Remember, these should be words to use in FORMAL writing.
Write the target word (word you are searching) on the ………….. with the part of speech in ( ). Circle
the part of speech for the collocations and record them on the_____________.

10. Book ( V ) N Author, review, club, title, copy

V read, write, publish, review

11. Implement ( N ) ADJ: effective, developing, innovative, strategic

V: develop, plan, evaluate, adopt

12.Utilise ( V ) N : method, data, approach

V: cope, maximize, assess, evaluate

13. Demand ( V) V: meet, increase, reduce, place

ADJ: high, growing, global, popular

14. Dominance ( N ) N : market, us, language, trait, decade

V: establish, achieve, gain, reflect

15. Negotiate ( V ) V : refuse, attempt, compact, ratify

ADJ: willing, peaceful, collective, palestinian

OTHER USES OF WWW.WORDANDPHRASE.INFO: You can also use this resource as a dictionary,
thesaurus, and formal language checker.
Formality
indicator:
Less formal=
spoken, fiction,
magazine,
[newspaper]
More formal=
Academic,
[newspaper]
 Dictionary:
Common
definitions of the
target word

Thesaurus:
Synonyms for the target word. Click on a synonym to search Vocab in context:
that word in wordandphrase. You can then find whether or See the target word used in
not it has the meaning and level of formality you want to multiple real contextualized
express. You can also see uses of the word from the COCA to sentences. Parts of speech are
know how to use the word in context. color-coded to show how it fits
grammatically in the sentence.