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Have you been told that phrasal verbs are informal words?
Have you been told that you should avoid using phrasal verbs in formal/ academic writing?
Many English learners and international grad students often think that phrasal verbs are informal and not appropriate for a manuscript, a research paper or an essay.
Phrasal verbs, in fact, are neutral and there are many that are widely used in academia, research and other formal settings.
In this post I will share with you a list of common phrasal verbs that are commonly used when writing a research paper.
| Phrasal verb | Meaning | *Example |
| account for | to form the total of something | …that coding RNA accounted for the largest proportion |
| allude to | to mention someone or something without talking about them directly | Finally, we allude to potential interventions… |
| arrive at | to reach an agreement about something | The emphasis is on the convoluted pathway that was actually used by immunologists to arrive at understanding compared to the direct pathway that could have been used given the knowledge at that time. .. |
| attribute to | to think that someone or something has a particular quality or feature | The participants attributed as little blame as to the environmental factors. |
| base on | if you base something on facts or ideas, you use those facts or ideas to develop it | Most definitions of quality are based on products…. |
| bear out | to support the truth of something | Studies bear out early reports of mexiletine… |
| bring about | to cause something to happen | This receptor is required for calcitrol to bring about its action… |
| build on | to use a success or achievement as a base from which to achieve more success | Papers that build on very recent ideas are NIH funded less often than are papers that build on ideas that have had a chance to mature for at least 7 years |
| carry out | to do or complete something | Nursing research is usually carried out by registered nurses… |
| come about | to happen or to start to happen | The current theme issue came about by chance. |
| compare to/with | to consider how things or people are similar and how they are different | Results demonstrate massage therapy is effective for treating pain compared to no treatment/ The effect of adding glargine was compared with intensification of lifestyle |
| consist of | to be formed or made from two or more things | Each light chain consist of one variable domain… |
| contribute to | to be one of the cause of an event or a situation | … genetics contributes significantly to the weight-gain susceptibility |
| devote (something)to | to use time, energy or resources for a particular purpose | Devoting time to teaching even the most basic management skills… |
| dispense with | to stop using something or someone, or to get rid of something or someone, usually because you don’t need them | Could Psychiatry Dispense with Involuntary Medication? |
| expands on | to give more details about something that you have said or written | … the authors expand on the frequency occurrence proportions of handwritten features. |
| factor in | to include something when you are doing a calculation, or when you are trying to understand something | … studies related to immunosuppressive factors in response to stress… |
| find out | to discover information or a fact | Statistical Analysis to Find out the Optimal Locations for Non Invasive Brain Stimulation |
| focus on | to give a lot of attention to one particular person, subject, or thing | Forensic Psychiatry: Focus on Malpractice and Risk Management |
| follow up | to try to find out more about something, or to do something more to deal with it | … a cohort of 123 individuals; 82 (67%) were followed up by audiology. |
| narrow down | to make a number or list of things smaller, by removing the things that are least important, necessary, or suitable | … reactive changes serves to narrow down the various potential causes… |
| point out | to tell someone about information, often because you believe they don’t know or have forgotten it | … in order to point out its possible diagnostic limitations |
| point toward | to show that something is true or probably true | This points toward this bacterial consortium as a mediator between early lifestyle … |
| put forward | to offer an idea, opinion, reason etc, especially so that people can discuss it and make a decision | … investigators have put forward a number of possible causes |
| rule out | to stop considering something as a possibility | … we should suspect those fractures and rule out associated injuries, fractures in other vertebral segments, and acute spinal cord injury. |
| result in | to cause something, or to produce something | In the United States alone, approximately 1.7 million people suffer a TBI each year, with 275,000 being hospitalized and 52,000 cases resulting in death. |
| set up | to make a piece of equipment ready for use | … government has set up central isolation sites for all people entering the country from abroad to be placed under medical observation. |
| subject to | dependent on something else to happen or be true | All organizations are subject to risk and uncertainty. |
| sum up | to tell (information) again using fewer words | To sum up, miR-149 silencing promoted osteogenic differentiation of MSCs … |
PubMed® comprises more than 33 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
Practice time
Choose 3 phrasal verbs and write three sentences using them.
Practice time
Want to download and print the flashcards and the crossword?
Teacher Julieta 