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General words which are academic 
The General Service List (GSL) is a useful starting place to identify general English words. Many 
of the words in the GSL can be used in academic contexts. Consider these examples, all of which 
contain only words from the GSL, but all of which are acceptable in academic speech or writing: 

The aim of this report is to...

What I want to talk about today is...

There are several possible reasons for this, for example... [
giving reasons, giving examples
] 

In comparison, the control group
... [comparing] 
There are, however, many words from the GSL which are not academic. Consider these examples: 

Spoken English is more informal than academic English. It uses phrases like 'like' and things like 
that
. 

---


Acid rain is a bad thing for all of us. 
These examples contain several words and phrases which would not be considered good academic 
style, for example like (to give examples), 
thing, 
and
 bad.
These three words are also in the GSL. 
In this case, the important consideration is tone: words and phrases such as 
aim, report, reasons, 
for example, and in comparison are all academic in tone, while 
like, thing
, and 
bad 
are not. For 
this reason, when studying words for academic use, it is important to know whether they are 
academic (formal) or not. 
General vocabulary can also include general words which have special meaning in academic 
contexts. Examples include: 
discipline 

general meaning: training people to obey rules 

academic meaning: a subject of study 
populatio
n 

general meaning: the number of people living in a country/region 

academic meaning: all individuals who could possibly be included in a study/survey 
contro
l 

general meaning: power over sb/sth 

academic meaning: a group used in a scientific experiment to check results 
In this case, it is important to focus on both the meaning and usage of these general vocabulary 
items. 
Academic vocabulary is difficult to define, because it depends very much on what kind of 
context we are talking about. For example, spoken academic language differs from written 
academic language (though they also have much in common); the language for biology differs 
from the language for economics, especially in the technical language they use (though again, they 
have much in common). The main issue for EAP students is to raise your awareness, of which 
general words are formal enough to use in academic writing, build your knowledge of common 
academic words, and study and learn the technical vocabulary which is used in the discipline you 
are studying (or plan to study).