Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

Clusters in academic English

505g

Academic language possesses a large number of recurring clusters which have

become a conventional part of academic style, in speech and in writing. These

include:

[university literature seminar]

I suppose we’ve also touched on 

the fact that for modern readers works can

raise questions which perhaps they didn’t raise for their original readers.

I then show how 

the nature of observations leads to the structure of theories. 

It consisted of two main subsamples designed to span 

a wide range of age and

experience for both males and females. 

[seminar discussing business law]

If I sell to one of you, are you a consumer? Not unless you’re acting 

in the

course of a business. 

Û

140–154 Grammar and academic English

such as

for example

make sure that

in terms of 

the fact that

in other words

and so on

in order to

a variety of

the importance of

the nature of

likely to be

the use of

a (wide) range of

has to do with

take a look at

in the same way

it turns out that

at the same time

the way in which

in the course of

one of the things

in the case of

a large number of

you can see that

if you look at the

there are a number of

Û

539 Glossary for any unfamiliar terms

Appendix: Word clusters and grammar | 837

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838 |

Appendix: Punctuation

INTRODUCTION

506

Punctuation exists in order to indicate the boundaries of grammatical units and to

indicate grammatical information that is marked in spoken language by means of

intonation, pitch, etc. Punctuation consists of both rules and conventions.

Punctuation rules have to be followed; but punctuation conventions give writers

greater freedom and allow choices.

There are many ways in which written text can be punctuated. The major

punctuation marks are full stops, question marks, commas, exclamation marks,

colons, semi-colons, apostrophes and dashes. The most frequent forms are the full

stop (‘period’ in American English) and the comma.

Common punctuation marks: symbols and typographic conventions

506a

. = full stop, period (US English), dot, (decimal) point

, = comma

: = colon

; = semi-colon

? = question mark

! = exclamation mark

– = dash

’ = apostrophe (as in Jim’s, don’t)

“…” = quotation marks, double quotes

‘…’ = single quotes

- = hyphen (when used to separate words)

* = asterisk

& = and

@ = at (in email addresses: [e-mail])

/ = forward slash (as in website addresses)

\ = backwards slash or backslash

% = per cent, percentage

(…) = (round) brackets

( = open bracket

) = close bracket

[…] = square brackets

{…} = chain brackets

<…> = diamond brackets

London = underline

London = bold (on first letter)

London = italics

6.7 = six point seven

3.4 = three point four

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Capitals and full stops

506b

A capital (sometimes called upper case) letter marks the beginning of a sentence.

A full stop marks the end of a sentence: