Word Choice
What to consider when choosing a word
Your choice of words in a text may be affected not just by dictionary definitions but by other factors such as register, connotations, and collocation.
Academic English is one type of register (other examples are fiction, conversation, news reporting), and academic prose has certain characteristics which should affect your choice of words, such as formality. We'll examine the factors which can affect your choice of words or phrases under the following headings:
- Register: Academic prose is not written in the same style as a chatty email or a novel. More about register;
- Denotation and Connotation: Words have different meanings in different contexts and some similar words are easily confused; make sure you have chosen the correct one. Some words suggest particular references or evoke particular emotions; you may need to use or avoid these depending on the purpose of your text and your audience. More about denotation and connotation;
- Collocation: Many words which seem to be exact synonyms are in fact not. They may be used in different contexts and have different collocates. Understanding collocation can help you choose the correct word for a particular context. More about collocation;
Register
A register is a variety of English used by a particular group of people for a particular purpose. In the case of academic English the particular group comprises students and scholars of a particular academic disciple. The purpose is to communicate data, research, findings, and to discuss their implications. Academic writing is serious, impersonal, formal, objective, rational, analytical, and unbiased (see the glossary definition). All of this has implications for your choice of words. For example, to be objective, rational and analytical you need to be precise. Vague, general words do not help. Academic writing is serious writing (this does not mean it has to be boring or inelegant) and therefore does not use informal words, colloquialisms or clichés. Academic writing is impersonal. It is concerned with presenting information backed up by evidence not with personal unsubstantiated opinion.
You should be using:
- explicit rather than general terms
- Don't use superordinate terms where you are discussing something more particular: car (or bus, lorry, ...) rather than
vehicle; dog (or cat, mouse, squirrel, ...) rather thananimal; apple, (or pear, mango, cherry, ...) rather thanfruit - Superordinate terms may be used where they are used to refer to something already mentioned in a text (see anaphoric nouns).
- formal rather than informal words or phrases
- "Single word verbs" rather than multi-word verbs: continue rather than
go on; establish rather thanset up; compensate rather thanmake up for(however, sometimes a multi-word verb is what you need). - Full forms rather than contracted forms: has not rather than
hasn't; did not rather thandidn't; are not rather thanaren't - Formal words rather than colloquialisms: children rather than
kids; many rather thanlots; food rather thangrub - Avoid idioms, clichés, or euphemisms.
- impersonal rather than personal forms
- Avoid using personal pronoun such as "I", "we".
- Do get used to using the passive voice, especially where mention of an agent is not necessary.
Denotation and Connotation
The denotation of a word is its core meaning. Since a word may have more than one meaning there may be more than one denotation. Each denotation may have connotations, which are associations, references, ideas or emotions which spring to mind or are evoked when this word is used. These connotations should affect whether you use a particular word or not. Let's take the example of the words 'government', 'administration', 'regime'. You might find these words if you search for synonyms for any one of them. But they are not true synonyms (which in fact are quite rare). "government" is a fairly neutral word for a system of rule; "administration" is usually used for government by a particular political party; "regime" has strongly negative connotations and is normally used by writers who have strongly negative opinions about the government they are writing about. You can often get a good idea about both meaning and and connotation by examining their collocates:
- federal, local, state, central, French, national government
- local, the Clinton, the Obama, the Bush, central, state administration
- new, old, communist, military, authoritarian, colonial, totalitarian regime
- "If the government jails, taxes or fines people because it disagrees with what they say, it violates the First Amendment." (Norton 2020) - There is no qualifier here; 'government' is used in its broadest general sense.
- "Joe Biden’s administration is over. Though we have an extensive record, it is difficult to assess his presidency." (Shortis and Byrne 2025) - 'administration' is used because it refers to the government of one particular legislature; that of Joe Biden.
- "Using clear terminology to represent the experience of people living under toxic regimes is important for thinking about the possibilities of dissent balanced by the pressures to conformism." (Shorten 2022) - 'regimes' is used because of the word's negative connotation, reinforced by the the adjective 'toxic'.
Collocation
Collocation can provide a great deal of help in choosing an appropriate word. Let's suppose, for example, that you are discussing a device or machine. If your first language is not English you may wonder if you have have right word. Is it a device or a machine? Or perhaps a tool or an instrument. Or maybe a piece of equipment or a utensil. Dictionary definitions for these words can help you choose but only when you see their collocates do you get a feel for how native speakers use these similar words. Here are some examples of how the following set of similar words are used in real texts (tool, machine, equipment, device, apparatus, machinery, appliance, instrument):
Notes on these headwords and their collocates
At a first glance you might think that all of the above headwords have a single denotation (core meaning) but a modifier in the form of an adjective or noun can change that; a musical instrument has nothing in common with a survey instrument.
If you just look at the headwords (tool, machine, equipment, device, apparatus, machinery, appliance, instrument) you might think of them all as physical objects; you can visualise a machine, a device, an appliance, an instrument, and so on. However, if you look at some of their collocates you can see that they may refer to things which are more abstract than physical items. Management tools may be procedures, strategies or software for dealing with particular management issues. Administrative machinery refers to the structure and processes of government. A statutory instrument is a particular type of law enacted by delegated officials. So you can see that a collocate (in the form of a noun premodifier) may given the headword an extended meaning from its core definition. In fact, you may not find these meanings listed in a normal dictionary under the headword. Other examples in the above list are 'search tool', 'research tool', 'marketing tool', assessment tool', 'state machine', 'security apparatus', 'administrative apparatus', 'state apparatus', 'financial instrument'.
Also, as mentioned above, these headwords can be considered as superordinate terms. As such they are often used as anaphoric nouns. You can see examples of this anaphoric use of these words in this article in The Conversation. Look for 'these machines', 'these adaptive exercise tools', 'these features'.
You might also note that although the headwords in the above examples have very similar meanings, of the 84 collocates shown only 5 are shared with other headwords. The collocates given are only some of the most common ones for each headword and many could be used with the other headwords, but this is an indication that so-called synonyms are not true synonyms; they are not used in the same way in the same context or with identical collocates.