Top 100 Secondary 4 Vocabulary Collocations | Grade 10 Academic Word Partnerships for Writing and Reading

This Secondary 4 vocabulary collocations guide is built for students searching for Grade 10 vocabulary, 10th grade vocabulary words, academic collocations, word partnerships, and practical vocabulary for writing and reading. Instead of teaching words as isolated definitions, it teaches one hundred high-utility combinations such as analyse evidence, support a claim, draw a conclusion, mitigate risk, allocate resources, maintain standards and synthesize information.

Students using Grade 10 vocabulary worksheets, academic vocabulary lists, collocation exercises, or word partnership practice often know the individual words but still write combinations that sound unnatural, vague or technically wrong. A student may know evidence, claim, risk and criteria separately yet hesitate over whether English normally says make evidence, do a claim, lower a risk or use a criterion. Collocation knowledge solves that layer.

This longform Grade 10 academic collocations article therefore combines meanings, grammar patterns, natural partners, common errors, near-collocation contrasts, example sentences, retrieval practice, reading transfer, essay writing, worksheets and quizzes. The first three paragraphs intentionally match the language students and teachers use when searching for Secondary 4 vocabulary, 10th grade vocabulary, academic word partnerships, collocations with meanings and examples, vocabulary practice and writing vocabulary, but the public teaching job is simple: help students produce English that is not merely correct word-by-word, but natural and precise as a phrase.

This page extends the Secondary 4 / Grade 10 academic-vocabulary flagship, the practice, worksheet and quiz system, the synonyms and antonyms precision guide, the roots, prefixes and suffixes morphology guide, and the context-clues and reading guide. Those pages own their respective jobs. This page owns academic collocation and phrase-level control.

Vocabulary becomes fluent when the right words start arriving together.

The 60-second answer

Collocation means a combination of words that occurs naturally and conventionally in a language.
Some collocations are strong: draw a conclusion is much more natural than many theoretically possible alternatives.
Some are flexible: we can provide, present, gather, cite or evaluate evidence, but each verb performs a different job.
Grammar matters: verb+noun, adjective+noun, noun+noun and adverb+adjective patterns behave differently.
Meaning matters: make an assumption is not the same as test an assumption.
Register matters: academic writing often prefers address a problem where conversation may simply say deal with a problem.
Prepositions matter: students should learn whole frames such as contribute to change and consistent with evidence.
One correct word can still produce a wrong phrase.
Retrieval should be phrase-level: see “risk” and retrieve mitigate risk, not only the definition of mitigate.
Transfer is the goal: the phrase should work naturally in a new essay, passage, report, presentation or subject.

Why collocations matter at Secondary 4 / Grade 10

By this stage, vocabulary errors are often no longer simple “wrong meaning” errors. Students may choose a word whose dictionary definition fits but whose partnership does not. They write do a conclusion instead of draw a conclusion, make research instead of conduct research, or strongly evidence when the sentence needs strong evidence. These errors are revealing: the student has word knowledge without phrase knowledge.

Collocations also speed reading. When readers see conduct research, support a claim or meet a requirement, they process a familiar chunk rather than rebuilding each word independently. In writing, these chunks reduce decision load. The student can spend more attention on argument, evidence and structure because common phrase architecture is already available.

But collocation learning should not become phrase memorisation without thought. Strong students know the partnership and the function. Provide evidence means supply support. Evaluate evidence means judge its quality. Cite evidence means point to or formally reference it. Same noun, different intellectual operation.

The collocation equation

meaning + grammar pattern + natural partnership + function + context = usable collocation

Part I — Evidence, research and data collocations

1. analyse evidence

Meaning: examine evidence closely by separating its parts, relationships, patterns or implications. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: analyse evidence, analyse data, analyse a passage, analyse trends. Wrong turn: analyse about evidence is usually wrong because analyse takes the object directly. Boundary: analysing evidence is not the same as evaluating its quality; analysis may explain structure before judgement. Example: Iona analysed the evidence by separating the survey result from the assumptions used to interpret it. Transfer: useful in English comprehension, Science practical work, Humanities source analysis and project reports.

2. assess impact

Meaning: judge the size, importance, direction or consequences of an effect. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: assess impact, assess risk, assess effectiveness, assess performance. Wrong turn: analyse impact is possible but performs a different job; assess adds judgement against criteria. Example: The report assesses the impact of longer commuting times on student attendance. Boundary: impact should be specified where possible—impact on what group, outcome or system? Transfer: useful whenever a question asks whether a change mattered rather than merely what changed.

3. evaluate effectiveness

Meaning: judge how successfully something achieves its intended objective. Pattern: verb + abstract noun. Natural partners: evaluate effectiveness, evaluate performance, evaluate evidence, evaluate alternatives. Wrong turn: do not treat effectiveness as efficiency. Example: Maren evaluated the effectiveness of the programme by comparing error rates before and after the intervention. Boundary: a method can be effective but inefficient if it works at excessive cost. Transfer: strong in argumentative essays, Science evaluation, policy analysis and project reflection.

4. examine assumptions

Meaning: inspect ideas that an argument or method accepts as true, especially those not fully proven. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: examine assumptions, challenge assumptions, underlying assumptions, hidden assumptions. Wrong turn: check assumptions is understandable but often less analytical in formal prose. Example: The class examined the assumption that all households have equal access to high-speed internet. Boundary: not every assumption is unreasonable; some are necessary starting conditions. Transfer: useful for critical reading and evaluation.

5. interpret data

Meaning: explain what data mean in relation to a question, model or context. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: interpret data, interpret findings, interpret results, interpret a graph. Wrong turn: describing numbers is not yet interpreting them. Example: Leonie interpreted the data cautiously because the sample was small. Boundary: interpretation can be reasonable without being uniquely proven. Transfer: essential in Science, Mathematics, Geography, Economics and English comprehension of infographics.

6. identify patterns

Meaning: recognise repeated, systematic or meaningful regularities in information. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: identify patterns, identify trends, identify causes, identify limitations. Wrong turn: a single event is not normally a pattern. Example: Iona identified a pattern of declining participation after the fourth week. Boundary: identifying a pattern does not explain why it exists. Transfer: useful in data analysis, literature, history and revision diagnostics.

7. verify information

Meaning: check whether information is accurate, authentic or correctly attributed. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: verify information, verify a claim, verify identity, independently verify. Wrong turn: prove information is not a natural substitute. Example: Before citing the statistic, Maren verified the information against the original source. Boundary: verification checks; it does not automatically establish relevance. Transfer: essential for source use, media literacy and research.

8. provide evidence

Meaning: supply information that supports or challenges a claim. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: provide evidence, present evidence, offer evidence. Wrong turn: give an evidence is usually unidiomatic because evidence is normally uncountable in this sense. Example: The report provides evidence that waiting times fell after staffing changes. Boundary: evidence should be relevant and sufficient, not merely present. Transfer: central to essays, reports and oral argument.

9. gather evidence

Meaning: collect information for investigation or argument. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: gather evidence, gather data, gather information, gather feedback. Wrong turn: gathering evidence is not evaluating it. Example: The team gathered evidence from interviews, attendance records and direct observation. Boundary: more evidence is not automatically better if quality is poor. Transfer: useful in projects, source-based writing and investigations.

10. cite evidence

Meaning: refer to evidence explicitly, often with source attribution. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: cite evidence, cite a source, cite an example. Wrong turn: quote evidence may work for exact wording but does not cover all forms of citation. Example: Iona cited the survey result and then explained why it supported the inference. Boundary: citation without explanation can still produce a weak paragraph. Transfer: crucial for academic integrity and evidence-based writing.

11. support a claim

Meaning: provide reasons or evidence that make a claim more defensible. Pattern: verb + noun phrase. Natural partners: support a claim, support an argument, support a conclusion. Wrong turn: support to a claim is incorrect in this pattern. Example: Travel-time records support the claim that the new route improved access. Boundary: support does not necessarily prove. Transfer: one of the highest-utility academic collocations across subjects.

12. substantiate a claim

Meaning: support a claim with substantial evidence or reasoning. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: substantiate a claim, substantiate an allegation, substantiate an argument. Wrong turn: do not use the word merely because it sounds formal; the sentence should involve actual support. Example: The writer could not substantiate the claim that the change benefited every student. Boundary: substantiate is stronger and more formal than simple support. Transfer: useful in evaluative and argumentative writing.

13. challenge a claim

Meaning: question, dispute or test whether a claim is defensible. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: challenge a claim, challenge an assumption, challenge a conclusion. Wrong turn: challenging is not automatically disproving. Example: A second dataset challenged the claim that the pattern was universal. Boundary: the collocation signals scrutiny or opposition, not necessarily final refutation. Transfer: strong for critical response and source evaluation.

14. draw a conclusion

Meaning: form a judgement from evidence or reasoning. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: draw a conclusion, draw an inference, draw a distinction. Wrong turn: make a conclusion is understandable but less idiomatic in formal academic English. Example: From the repeated pattern, Iona drew the tentative conclusion that the effect was not random. Boundary: the strength of the conclusion should match the evidence. Transfer: useful in reading, Science and argumentative writing.

15. reach a conclusion

Meaning: arrive at a judgement after reasoning or investigation. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: reach a conclusion, reach a decision, reach a consensus. Boundary: draw a conclusion foregrounds inference from evidence; reach a conclusion foregrounds the endpoint of reasoning. Example: The committee reached a conclusion only after comparing the two methods. Transfer: useful for describing decision processes and analytical outcomes.

16. make an assumption

Meaning: accept or introduce an idea as true for reasoning, sometimes without direct proof. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: make an assumption, question an assumption, underlying assumption. Wrong turn: do an assumption is incorrect. Example: The model makes the assumption that demand remains constant. Boundary: assumptions can be necessary, but they should be visible and defensible. Transfer: useful in Mathematics, Science models and argument analysis.

17. test a hypothesis

Meaning: examine a proposed explanation or prediction using evidence or experiment. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: test a hypothesis, formulate a hypothesis, reject a hypothesis. Wrong turn: prove a hypothesis is often too strong in empirical contexts. Example: The researchers tested the hypothesis using a larger sample. Boundary: evidence can support or fail to support a hypothesis without creating absolute proof. Transfer: central in Science and research literacy.

18. conduct research

Meaning: carry out a systematic investigation. Pattern: verb + uncountable noun. Natural partners: conduct research, conduct a study, conduct an experiment, conduct an interview. Wrong turn: make research is a common learner error. Example: The class conducted research before proposing the policy change. Boundary: reading a few websites is not automatically systematic research. Transfer: high-value phrase for reports and projects.

19. collect data

Meaning: gather measurements, observations or records for analysis. Pattern: verb + plural/mass noun. Natural partners: collect data, collect samples, collect responses. Wrong turn: data collection should not be confused with interpretation. Example: Leonie collected data at the same time each day to improve comparability. Boundary: good collection methods matter to reliability and validity. Transfer: central in investigations and surveys.

20. interpret findings

Meaning: explain what research results mean, including their significance and limitations. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: interpret findings, interpret results, interpret evidence. Wrong turn: interpretation should not add certainty absent from the findings. Example: The report interpreted the findings cautiously because the study was short. Boundary: findings are what the study found; interpretation is the meaning assigned to them. Transfer: essential in Science conclusions, reports and critical reading.

Part II — Argument and reasoning collocations

21. formulate an argument

Meaning: construct an argument deliberately from a claim, reasons and evidence. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: formulate an argument, formulate a hypothesis, formulate a response. Wrong turn: form an argument is possible but often less precise in formal writing about deliberate construction. Example: Maren formulated an argument around access, cost and sustainability. Transfer: useful for planning essays and oral responses.

22. develop an argument

Meaning: expand an argument with explanation, evidence, qualification and structure. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: develop an argument, develop an idea, develop a framework. Wrong turn: repeating the same claim is not development. Example: Maren developed the argument by adding a counterargument and a concession. Boundary: development means intellectual progression, not merely additional length. Transfer: central to paragraph and essay improvement.

23. present an argument

Meaning: communicate an argument to an audience in spoken or written form. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: present an argument, present evidence, present findings. Wrong turn: presentation concerns communication; it does not guarantee argument quality. Example: Leonie presented the argument clearly but still needed stronger evidence. Transfer: useful in essays, presentations and debates.

24. strengthen an argument

Meaning: make an argument more defensible, coherent or persuasive. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: strengthen an argument, strengthen evidence, strengthen accountability. Example: Acknowledging one fair limitation strengthened the argument because it reduced overclaiming. Boundary: more forceful language can weaken an argument if evidence does not support it. Transfer: useful as a revision instruction.

25. address a counterargument

Meaning: recognise and respond to an opposing argument. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: address a counterargument, address a concern, address an issue. Wrong turn: simply mentioning the opposition does not fully address it. Example: The essay addressed the counterargument by conceding the cost increase and then evaluating whether the benefit justified it. Transfer: central to balanced argument.

26. acknowledge a limitation

Meaning: recognise openly that a weakness, boundary or uncertainty exists. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: acknowledge a limitation, acknowledge a concern, acknowledge uncertainty. Wrong turn: acknowledging a limitation is not the same as abandoning the whole argument. Example: The report acknowledged a limitation in the sample size before explaining why the trend was still worth investigating. Boundary: this collocation often improves credibility because it prevents false certainty. Transfer: useful in evaluation, reflection and discussion sections.

27. qualify a statement

Meaning: make a statement more precise by adding conditions, limits or exceptions. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: qualify a statement, qualify a claim, qualified conclusion. Wrong turn: qualify here does not mean earn a credential. Example: Maren qualified the statement by replacing “all students” with “many students in the sampled schools”. Boundary: qualification can strengthen an argument by reducing overstatement. Transfer: essential for precise academic writing.

28. justify a decision

Meaning: give reasons or evidence showing why a decision is reasonable or warranted. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: justify a decision, justify a choice, justify a conclusion. Wrong turn: repeating the decision does not justify it. Example: The committee justified the decision by comparing safety benefits with financial cost. Boundary: justification requires reasons tied to relevant criteria. Transfer: useful in evaluations, reflective writing and oral explanations.

29. explain a rationale

Meaning: make clear the underlying reasoning behind a method, choice or policy. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: explain a rationale, provide a rationale, underlying rationale. Wrong turn: rationale is not simply the decision itself. Example: The teacher explained the rationale for spacing vocabulary review across several days. Boundary: a rationale should reveal why an approach makes sense, not merely what happens. Transfer: useful in reports, projects and reflective responses.

30. articulate a position

Meaning: express a viewpoint clearly and precisely. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: articulate a position, articulate a concern, articulate an argument. Wrong turn: a strongly worded position is not automatically clearly articulated. Example: Iona articulated a position that supported the reform only under defined safeguards. Boundary: articulation concerns clarity of expression; evidence determines strength. Transfer: useful in essays, oral responses and debates.

31. compare perspectives

Meaning: examine similarities and differences between viewpoints. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: compare perspectives, compare interpretations, compare approaches. Wrong turn: listing two views without relating them is not comparison. Example: The essay compared the perspectives of commuters, businesses and residents. Boundary: comparison should identify a shared dimension. Transfer: strong for literature, history, humanities and discursive writing.

32. contrast approaches

Meaning: emphasise meaningful differences between methods or ways of thinking. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: contrast approaches, contrast methods, contrast outcomes. Wrong turn: contrast does not require claiming one approach is better. Example: The report contrasted a universal subsidy with a targeted subsidy. Boundary: evaluation comes after the differences are made clear. Transfer: useful in comparative essays and method analysis.

33. distinguish concepts

Meaning: identify the boundary between related ideas. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: distinguish concepts, distinguish between terms, clearly distinguish. Wrong turn: two concepts can be related while still distinct. Example: Students must distinguish effectiveness from efficiency. Boundary: this collocation is about conceptual precision, not merely spotting different spellings. Transfer: high-value for vocabulary, argument and technical subjects.

34. define criteria

Meaning: state the standards that will be used for judgement. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: define criteria, establish criteria, selection criteria. Wrong turn: a criterion should not appear after the judgement as a convenient excuse. Example: The class defined criteria for success before evaluating the proposals. Boundary: good criteria are relevant to the stated objective. Transfer: useful in evaluation and decision-making tasks.

35. apply criteria

Meaning: use stated standards consistently to judge cases or options. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: apply criteria, apply standards, apply a framework. Wrong turn: changing criteria from case to case weakens fairness. Example: Leonie applied the same criteria to all three proposals. Boundary: application is the use-stage; definition is the design-stage. Transfer: strong for comparison, rubrics and evaluation.

36. assess feasibility

Meaning: judge whether a plan can realistically be carried out under actual constraints. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: assess feasibility, financial feasibility, technical feasibility. Wrong turn: feasibility is not desirability. Example: The team assessed the feasibility of extending the programme to every school. Boundary: a desirable idea may be infeasible, while a feasible idea may still be undesirable. Transfer: useful in proposals, design tasks and policy writing.

37. consider implications

Meaning: think carefully about likely consequences, meanings or effects that follow from a finding or decision. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: consider implications, broader implications, practical implications. Wrong turn: implications are not always direct consequences; they can also be what a finding suggests. Example: The essay considered the implications of replacing face-to-face support with an online-only system. Transfer: strong for higher-order analysis.

38. evaluate alternatives

Meaning: judge different possible options against relevant criteria. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: evaluate alternatives, compare alternatives, viable alternatives. Wrong turn: listing alternatives is not evaluation. Example: The committee evaluated alternatives before recommending the most feasible option. Boundary: alternatives should be genuine options, not straw-man choices. Transfer: useful in design, problem solving and argumentative essays.

39. identify consequences

Meaning: recognise outcomes that follow from an action or condition. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: identify consequences, unintended consequences, long-term consequences. Wrong turn: do not call every later event a consequence without a defensible link. Example: The report identified an unintended consequence: fewer students sought help after the rule was introduced. Transfer: useful in cause-effect analysis.

40. anticipate objections

Meaning: predict reasonable criticisms or counterarguments before they are raised. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: anticipate objections, anticipate problems, anticipate demand. Wrong turn: inventing a weak objection does not strengthen an argument. Example: Maren anticipated objections about cost and addressed them with comparative data. Boundary: anticipate the strongest reasonable challenge, not the easiest one to defeat. Transfer: valuable in persuasive writing and presentations.

Part III — Change, evaluation and performance collocations

41. cause concern

Meaning: create worry, attention or reason for caution. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: cause concern, raise concern, serious concern. Wrong turn: make concern is unnatural. Example: The sudden decline in attendance caused concern among teachers. Boundary: concern indicates a reason for attention, not proof of harm. Transfer: useful in reports and evaluative writing.

42. contribute to change

Meaning: play a part in producing a change. Pattern: verb + preposition + noun. Natural partners: contribute to change, contribute to growth, contribute to decline. Wrong turn: the preposition to is essential in this pattern. Example: Better lighting contributed to improved evening activity in the area. Boundary: contribute to is usually weaker and safer than claim sole causation. Transfer: excellent for multi-causal explanation.

43. trigger a response

Meaning: initiate a reaction, action or process. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: trigger a response, trigger a reaction, trigger an alarm. Wrong turn: a trigger may start a process without being the deepest root cause. Example: The warning triggered an immediate evacuation response. Boundary: distinguish initiating event from underlying conditions. Transfer: useful in Science, systems thinking and cause-effect writing.

44. mitigate risk

Meaning: reduce the severity, likelihood or harmful effect of risk. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: mitigate risk, mitigate harm, risk mitigation. Wrong turn: mitigate does not mean eliminate. Example: Redundant backups can mitigate the risk of data loss. Boundary: prevention and mitigation are different jobs. Transfer: high-value in policy, Science, business and evaluative writing.

45. reduce uncertainty

Meaning: make a situation, estimate or conclusion less uncertain. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: reduce uncertainty, reduce risk, reduce error. Wrong turn: reducing uncertainty is not the same as guaranteeing certainty. Example: A larger sample reduced uncertainty around the estimate. Boundary: uncertainty can decrease while remaining significant. Transfer: useful in data interpretation and cautious reasoning.

46. increase access

Meaning: make it easier or more possible for people to reach, obtain or use something. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: increase access, improve access, expand access. Wrong turn: availability alone may not increase practical access. Example: Evening opening hours increased access for working families. Boundary: identify which barrier is being reduced. Transfer: useful in education, transport, health and technology topics.

47. improve efficiency

Meaning: reduce waste while maintaining or improving the intended result. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: improve efficiency, increase efficiency, operational efficiency. Wrong turn: improving speed alone is not necessarily improving efficiency if errors increase. Example: Automation improved efficiency by reducing duplicate data entry. Boundary: efficiency requires a resource dimension such as time, cost or effort. Transfer: useful in systems analysis.

48. enhance reliability

Meaning: improve dependable consistency. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: enhance reliability, improve reliability, system reliability. Wrong turn: reliability is not validity. Example: Repeated calibration enhanced the reliability of the measurements. Boundary: a highly reliable process can still consistently measure the wrong thing. Transfer: strong for Science and methodology.

49. maintain consistency

Meaning: keep procedures, standards or patterns stable enough across cases or time. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: maintain consistency, ensure consistency, consistent application. Wrong turn: consistency does not automatically mean quality. Example: The researchers maintained consistency by using the same measurement protocol each day. Boundary: a method can be consistently wrong. Transfer: useful in experiments, marking and systems.

50. ensure accuracy

Meaning: take steps so that information, measurement or expression is correct. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: ensure accuracy, improve accuracy, verify accuracy. Wrong turn: ensure is a strong verb; use it only when the process genuinely controls the outcome. Example: The team cross-checked the figures to ensure accuracy. Boundary: accuracy and precision remain distinct. Transfer: useful in reports, data work and editing.

Part IV — Objectives, constraints and resource collocations

51. achieve an objective

Meaning: successfully reach an intended goal. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: achieve an objective, achieve a goal, achieve an outcome. Wrong turn: do an objective is incorrect. Example: The programme achieved its objective of reducing late submissions. Boundary: achieving one objective does not prove the whole programme is efficient or sustainable. Transfer: useful in evaluations, project reflections and reports.

52. meet a requirement

Meaning: satisfy a stated condition, standard or obligation. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: meet a requirement, meet a standard, meet a deadline. Wrong turn: reach a requirement is generally unnatural. Example: The revised design met the safety requirement without increasing cost. Boundary: meeting the minimum requirement may not mean excellent performance. Transfer: useful in school tasks, design specifications and policy analysis.

53. address a problem

Meaning: take action to deal with a problem or give it serious attention. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: address a problem, address an issue, address a concern. Wrong turn: addressing a problem does not necessarily mean solving it. Example: The new timetable addressed the problem of overcrowded peak-hour transport. Boundary: the collocation is useful when a response begins but may not remove the problem completely. Transfer: strong for formal reports and essays.

54. solve a problem

Meaning: find and implement a solution that resolves a problem. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: solve a problem, solve an equation, solve a puzzle. Wrong turn: do not claim a problem is solved when a measure merely reduces its severity. Example: Additional buses eased congestion but did not fully solve the problem. Boundary: address and mitigate are often safer when the issue remains. Transfer: helps calibrate claim strength.

55. overcome a limitation

Meaning: successfully deal with or remove the effect of a limiting factor. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: overcome a limitation, overcome a barrier, overcome a constraint. Wrong turn: do not say a limitation is overcome when it is merely acknowledged. Example: A larger sample helped overcome the limitation of the pilot study. Boundary: some limitations cannot be removed and must instead be managed or reported. Transfer: useful in methodology and reflection.

56. impose constraints

Meaning: create or place restrictions on what can be done. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: impose constraints, impose restrictions, budget constraints. Wrong turn: constraints can arise naturally or structurally without being deliberately imposed; choose the verb carefully. Example: The small budget imposed constraints on the scale of the project. Boundary: impose suggests the constraint comes from an external condition or decision. Transfer: useful in planning and systems analysis.

57. face constraints

Meaning: operate under restrictions or limits. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: face constraints, face challenges, face limitations. Wrong turn: have constraints is possible, but face constraints more clearly frames them as conditions affecting action. Example: Rural clinics face staffing and transport constraints. Boundary: facing a constraint does not imply responsibility for causing it. Transfer: useful for policy and evaluation.

58. allocate resources

Meaning: distribute limited resources deliberately among competing uses. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: allocate resources, allocate funding, allocate time. Wrong turn: give resources is less precise when formal distribution is intended. Example: The school allocated resources according to diagnosed need. Boundary: allocation implies scarcity or prioritisation. Transfer: useful in Economics, policy, projects and revision planning.

59. manage resources

Meaning: organise and use resources effectively over time. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: manage resources, manage time, manage risk. Wrong turn: allocation is the distribution decision; management is the ongoing use. Example: Leonie managed her revision resources by reserving timed papers for the final stage of practice. Boundary: the collocation includes monitoring and adjustment after initial allocation. Transfer: useful in project work and study skills.

60. monitor progress

Meaning: observe development repeatedly over time. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: monitor progress, monitor performance, monitor change. Wrong turn: one measurement is not monitoring. Example: The teacher monitored progress through weekly retrieval checks. Boundary: monitoring provides information; intervention is a separate step. Transfer: useful in learning plans, projects and policy implementation.

Part V — Policy, systems and public reasoning collocations

61. implement a policy

Meaning: put a policy into operation. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: implement a policy, implement a plan, implement changes. Wrong turn: announcing a policy is not implementing it. Example: The agency implemented the policy in stages to reduce operational risk. Boundary: implementation quality can determine whether a well-designed policy succeeds. Transfer: high-value for civic, social and argumentative topics.

62. enforce a regulation

Meaning: ensure that a rule or regulation is obeyed, often through authority or penalties. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: enforce a regulation, enforce a rule, enforce standards. Wrong turn: a regulation can exist without being effectively enforced. Example: The city introduced the rule but lacked staff to enforce the regulation consistently. Boundary: legislation, regulation and enforcement are separate stages. Transfer: useful in law, civics and policy analysis.

63. adopt a strategy

Meaning: choose and begin using a planned approach. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: adopt a strategy, adopt an approach, adopt a policy. Wrong turn: adopting a strategy does not guarantee implementation quality. Example: The school adopted a retrieval-first strategy for vocabulary revision. Boundary: adoption is selection/acceptance; execution comes later. Transfer: useful in education, management and argumentative writing.

64. develop a framework

Meaning: construct an organised structure of ideas, criteria or procedures. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: develop a framework, analytical framework, conceptual framework. Wrong turn: a list of unrelated points is not a framework. Example: Maren developed a framework using effectiveness, equity, feasibility and sustainability. Boundary: a framework organises thought; it does not determine the conclusion by itself. Transfer: useful in planning and evaluation.

65. establish priorities

Meaning: decide which objectives or needs should receive greater importance. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: establish priorities, set priorities, strategic priorities. Wrong turn: naming everything a priority removes the meaning of prioritisation. Example: The emergency plan established safety and communication as the first priorities. Boundary: priorities involve ranking under constraint. Transfer: useful in policy, management and planning.

66. set priorities

Meaning: choose which tasks or goals should come first. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: set priorities, set goals, set standards. Boundary: establish priorities is slightly more formal; set priorities is common and natural in both academic and practical contexts. Example: Leonie set priorities by repairing the highest-frequency exam errors first. Transfer: useful in project planning and self-management.

67. balance competing interests

Meaning: weigh and manage different legitimate needs that cannot all be maximised simultaneously. Pattern: verb + adjective + plural noun. Natural partners: balance competing interests, balance priorities, competing demands. Wrong turn: balance does not mean give every side exactly equal weight. Example: Transport policy must balance competing interests of speed, access, cost and environmental impact. Boundary: the collocation is especially useful where trade-offs are real. Transfer: strong for discursive and policy writing.

68. promote equity

Meaning: support greater fairness, particularly where different barriers or needs matter. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: promote equity, promote access, promote inclusion. Wrong turn: equity is not always identical treatment. Example: Targeted support can promote equity when some students face documented barriers. Boundary: writers should define the fairness principle rather than use equity as a vague positive label. Transfer: useful in education and social-policy writing.

69. ensure accountability

Meaning: create conditions in which decision-makers must explain actions and can be held responsible. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: ensure accountability, strengthen accountability, public accountability. Wrong turn: transparency can support accountability but is not identical to it. Example: Publishing decision records helps ensure accountability. Boundary: ensure is strong; use it when mechanisms genuinely make answerability likely, otherwise improve or strengthen may be safer. Transfer: useful in governance and ethics.

70. protect welfare

Meaning: safeguard health, safety and overall well-being. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: protect welfare, promote welfare, child welfare, animal welfare. Wrong turn: welfare is broader than financial assistance. Example: The regulation was introduced to protect worker welfare in extreme heat. Boundary: specify whose welfare and which dimension of well-being is involved. Transfer: useful in ethics, social policy and persuasive writing.

71. create an incentive

Meaning: establish a condition that encourages a particular behaviour. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: create an incentive, provide an incentive, financial incentive. Wrong turn: an incentive influences behaviour but does not guarantee it. Example: Lower early-registration fees created an incentive to sign up sooner. Boundary: explain what behaviour becomes more attractive and why. Transfer: useful in Economics and policy writing.

72. reduce inequality

Meaning: decrease uneven distribution of resources, opportunity, outcomes or power. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: reduce inequality, income inequality, educational inequality. Wrong turn: reducing one inequality can create or leave others unchanged. Example: Expanded transport access may reduce inequality in job opportunities. Boundary: identify the dimension being equalised. Transfer: strong for social and economic analysis.

73. expand access

Meaning: extend the number of people, places or situations in which a resource or service can be reached and used. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: expand access, broaden access, improve access. Wrong turn: expansion in nominal availability may not remove affordability or usability barriers. Example: Mobile clinics expanded access to healthcare in remote areas. Boundary: access has practical dimensions beyond simple existence. Transfer: useful in health, education and technology topics.

74. strengthen governance

Meaning: improve the systems by which decisions are made, implemented, monitored and made accountable. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: strengthen governance, improve governance, governance framework. Wrong turn: governance is broader than government. Example: Independent review can strengthen governance by reducing conflicts of interest. Boundary: specify which institutional mechanism improves. Transfer: useful in civics, business and public policy.

75. build capacity

Meaning: develop the skills, systems, infrastructure or resources needed to perform more effectively in the future. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: build capacity, institutional capacity, capacity building. Wrong turn: increase capacity can refer to size; build capacity often emphasises longer-term capability development. Example: The programme trained local staff to build capacity rather than depend permanently on external specialists. Boundary: capacity is potential ability, not automatically performance. Transfer: useful in development, education and organisational analysis.

76. maintain standards

Meaning: keep quality or performance at an expected level over time. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: maintain standards, high standards, minimum standards. Wrong turn: achieving a standard once does not prove it is maintained. Example: The laboratory introduced calibration checks to maintain standards across repeated tests. Boundary: maintenance implies continuity. Transfer: useful in quality control, education and governance.

77. establish guidelines

Meaning: create and formalise principles that guide decisions or behaviour. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: establish guidelines, issue guidelines, follow guidelines. Wrong turn: guidelines may be advisory rather than legally binding; do not automatically call them regulations. Example: The school established guidelines for responsible AI use. Boundary: wording should reflect the authority level of the rule. Transfer: useful in institutional and policy writing.

78. follow procedures

Meaning: carry out prescribed steps in the expected order or manner. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: follow procedures, follow instructions, standard procedure. Wrong turn: do procedures is less natural when compliance with prescribed steps is intended. Example: Researchers followed procedures designed to reduce contamination. Boundary: following a procedure improves consistency but does not prove the procedure itself is valid. Transfer: useful in Science, safety and administrative writing.

79. meet standards

Meaning: satisfy required levels of quality, safety or performance. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: meet standards, meet expectations, meet criteria. Wrong turn: reach standards is less idiomatic in this sense. Example: The building must meet safety standards before opening. Boundary: meeting a minimum standard is not identical to exceeding it. Transfer: useful across evaluation and compliance contexts.

80. assess outcomes

Meaning: judge the results produced by an intervention, programme or process. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: assess outcomes, measure outcomes, learning outcomes. Wrong turn: output and outcome are not always the same; an output may be what was produced, while an outcome may be the effect. Example: The programme assessed outcomes six months after implementation. Boundary: long-term outcome assessment may differ from immediate performance measurement. Transfer: useful in education, healthcare and policy evaluation.

Part VI — Academic writing and communication collocations

81. use precise language

Meaning: choose wording whose boundaries match the intended meaning closely. Pattern: verb + adjective + noun. Natural partners: precise language, precise definition, use precise terminology. Wrong turn: difficult vocabulary is not automatically precise. Example: Iona used precise language by writing “some surveyed students” rather than “all teenagers”. Boundary: precision concerns exactness of meaning and scope. Transfer: foundational to every academic subject.

82. maintain formal tone

Meaning: keep language consistently appropriate for a formal academic or professional context. Pattern: verb + adjective + noun. Natural partners: formal tone, maintain tone, consistent tone. Wrong turn: formal does not mean stiff, inflated or full of rare words. Example: Maren maintained a formal tone without replacing every ordinary word with a grander synonym. Boundary: tone should fit audience and purpose. Transfer: useful in essays, reports and formal correspondence.

83. adopt an appropriate register

Meaning: choose a level and style of language suited to audience, purpose and situation. Pattern: verb + determiner + adjective + noun. Natural partners: appropriate register, formal register, adopt a register. Wrong turn: register is not simply politeness; vocabulary, grammar and level of formality all contribute. Example: Leonie adopted an appropriate register for a formal proposal. Boundary: the same idea may need different wording in a speech, email, report and examination essay. Transfer: essential in situational and transactional writing.

84. structure an argument

Meaning: organise claims, reasons, evidence and responses into a logical sequence. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: structure an argument, structure a paragraph, logical structure. Wrong turn: adding transition words cannot repair an argument with no underlying structure. Example: Maren structured the argument around four evaluative criteria. Boundary: structure is the relationship among parts, not visual formatting alone. Transfer: central to essay planning.

85. organise ideas

Meaning: arrange ideas into a sequence or hierarchy that the reader can follow. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: organise ideas, organise information, organise paragraphs. Wrong turn: chronological order is only one possible organising principle. Example: Iona organised the ideas by cause, consequence and response. Boundary: organisation should serve the reasoning job. Transfer: useful in writing, revision and presentations.

86. clarify meaning

Meaning: make an idea easier to understand and less ambiguous. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: clarify meaning, clarify a point, clarify a distinction. Wrong turn: adding more words can make meaning less clear. Example: The writer clarified the meaning by defining “access” as practical ability to use the service. Boundary: clarification can preserve complexity while removing ambiguity. Transfer: useful in explanations, definitions and revisions.

87. express uncertainty

Meaning: signal appropriately that a conclusion, estimate or interpretation is not certain. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: express uncertainty, acknowledge uncertainty, degree of uncertainty. Wrong turn: uncertainty is not weakness when evidence genuinely has limits. Example: The report expressed uncertainty by using “may indicate” rather than “proves”. Boundary: calibrated uncertainty improves accuracy. Transfer: vital for source use and scientific writing.

88. signal contrast

Meaning: make a meaningful difference between ideas explicit to the reader. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: signal contrast, signal a shift, contrast marker. Wrong turn: inserting however where no logical contrast exists creates false cohesion. Example: The phrase “by contrast” signalled contrast between short-term effectiveness and long-term sustainability. Boundary: the connector should reflect a real relationship. Transfer: useful in paragraph cohesion.

89. show causation

Meaning: provide evidence that one factor produces or contributes causally to another outcome. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: show causation, establish causation, causal relationship. Wrong turn: correlation does not automatically show causation. Example: The observational study showed an association but could not show causation. Boundary: this is a high-strength evidential collocation and should be used cautiously. Transfer: essential in Science, Statistics and argumentative reasoning.

90. introduce evidence

Meaning: bring evidence into a paragraph or argument in a way that prepares the reader to understand its relevance. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: introduce evidence, present evidence, integrate evidence. Wrong turn: dropping a quotation into a paragraph without context does not effectively introduce evidence. Example: Maren introduced the evidence by naming the source and the question it addressed. Boundary: introduction should connect evidence to the claim. Transfer: useful in essay writing.

91. integrate sources

Meaning: combine material from different sources within one line of reasoning. Pattern: verb + plural noun. Natural partners: integrate sources, integrate evidence, integrate information. Wrong turn: one-source-per-paragraph summaries are not necessarily integration. Example: The essay integrated sources by comparing where their explanations agreed and diverged. Boundary: integration creates relationships across evidence. Transfer: strong for research writing and synthesis tasks.

92. synthesize information

Meaning: combine information from several sources or ideas into a new coherent understanding. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: synthesize information, synthesize evidence, synthesize findings. Wrong turn: listing summaries is not synthesis. Example: Iona synthesized information from transport, employment and housing reports to explain access. Boundary: synthesis adds structure or insight that is not present in isolated summaries. Transfer: high-value across research and comprehension.

93. paraphrase accurately

Meaning: restate source meaning in new wording without changing scope, certainty or logic. Pattern: verb + adverb. Natural partners: accurately paraphrase, paraphrase a claim, faithful paraphrase. Wrong turn: changing may contribute to causes is not accurate paraphrase. Example: Leonie paraphrased accurately by preserving the source’s uncertainty. Boundary: lexical change is secondary to meaning preservation. Transfer: essential for comprehension and academic integrity.

94. summarise concisely

Meaning: state the essential content briefly without unnecessary detail. Pattern: verb + adverb. Natural partners: concise summary, summarise concisely, briefly summarise. Wrong turn: short but incomplete is not a good summary. Example: Maren summarised the report concisely in three sentences that preserved the main claim, evidence and limitation. Boundary: concision removes redundancy, not necessary logic. Transfer: useful in note-making and synthesis.

95. explain significance

Meaning: show why a fact, pattern, quotation or result matters. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: explain significance, practical significance, historical significance. Wrong turn: repeating the evidence is not explaining its significance. Example: Iona explained the significance of the decline by linking it to reduced access. Boundary: significance can be practical, conceptual, historical or statistical; context determines the sense. Transfer: high-value for English, History and Science evaluation.

96. develop coherence

Meaning: build logical connection among ideas so the text forms an intelligible whole. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: develop coherence, improve coherence, coherent argument. Wrong turn: coherence is not produced by connectors alone. Example: Repeating the controlling criterion across paragraphs helped develop coherence. Boundary: ideas must relate logically before linguistic linking can help. Transfer: useful in writing revision.

97. improve cohesion

Meaning: strengthen linguistic links between sentences and parts of a text. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: improve cohesion, cohesive devices, lexical cohesion. Wrong turn: cohesion and coherence are related but not identical. Example: Pronoun reference and controlled repetition improved cohesion between the two sentences. Boundary: cohesion concerns textual linking; coherence concerns overall sense and logic. Transfer: useful in editing and language analysis.

98. avoid ambiguity

Meaning: prevent wording from supporting multiple unintended interpretations. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: avoid ambiguity, reduce ambiguity, ambiguous wording. Wrong turn: complexity is not automatically ambiguity. Example: Replacing “they” with the specific organisation helped avoid ambiguity. Boundary: deliberate ambiguity may be a literary effect, but unintended ambiguity weakens technical writing. Transfer: useful across all formal writing.

99. make a distinction

Meaning: state or recognise a meaningful difference between related ideas. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: make a distinction, draw a distinction, clear distinction. Wrong turn: do a distinction is incorrect. Example: The essay made a distinction between availability and practical access. Boundary: the distinction should matter to the argument. Transfer: one of the most valuable collocations for precise academic reasoning.

100. support interpretation

Meaning: provide textual or contextual evidence that makes an interpretation defensible. Pattern: verb + noun. Natural partners: support an interpretation, plausible interpretation, textual support. Wrong turn: an interpretation should not be supported only by assertion. Example: Repeated images of confinement supported Iona’s interpretation that the setting symbolised restriction. Boundary: evidence can support more than one interpretation; support is not always exclusive proof. Transfer: essential for literature and comprehension.

The Top 100 at a glance

#	Collocation	Main academic job
1	analyse evidence	break down support
2	assess impact	judge effect
3	evaluate effectiveness	judge goal achievement
4	examine assumptions	inspect starting ideas
5	interpret data	explain meaning of data
6	identify patterns	recognise regularity
7	verify information	check accuracy/authenticity
8	provide evidence	supply support
9	gather evidence	collect support
10	cite evidence	attribute support
11	support a claim	make a claim defensible
12	substantiate a claim	support strongly/formally
13	challenge a claim	question defensibility
14	draw a conclusion	infer judgement
15	reach a conclusion	arrive at judgement
16	make an assumption	introduce accepted premise
17	test a hypothesis	empirical checking
18	conduct research	carry out investigation
19	collect data	gather measurements
20	interpret findings	explain results
21	formulate an argument	construct reasoning
22	develop an argument	expand reasoning
23	present an argument	communicate reasoning
24	strengthen an argument	increase defensibility
25	address a counterargument	respond to opposition
26	acknowledge a limitation	recognise boundary
27	qualify a statement	limit scope
28	justify a decision	defend choice
29	explain a rationale	state underlying reasoning
30	articulate a position	express viewpoint clearly
31	compare perspectives	relate viewpoints
32	contrast approaches	show differences
33	distinguish concepts	protect boundaries
34	define criteria	set standards
35	apply criteria	use standards
36	assess feasibility	judge workability
37	consider implications	examine what follows
38	evaluate alternatives	judge options
39	identify consequences	recognise outcomes
40	anticipate objections	predict opposition
41	cause concern	signal reason for caution
42	contribute to change	partial causation
43	trigger a response	initiate reaction
44	mitigate risk	reduce harm
45	reduce uncertainty	narrow doubt
46	increase access	improve practical reach
47	improve efficiency	reduce waste
48	enhance reliability	improve consistency
49	maintain consistency	keep stable process
50	ensure accuracy	protect correctness
51	achieve an objective	reach goal
52	meet a requirement	satisfy condition
53	address a problem	deal with issue
54	solve a problem	resolve issue
55	overcome a limitation	remove constraint effect
56	impose constraints	create restrictions
57	face constraints	operate under limits
58	allocate resources	distribute scarcity
59	manage resources	control ongoing use
60	monitor progress	track development
61	implement a policy	put policy into operation
62	enforce a regulation	secure compliance
63	adopt a strategy	choose planned approach
64	develop a framework	organise criteria/ideas
65	establish priorities	rank needs formally
66	set priorities	choose what comes first
67	balance competing interests	manage trade-offs
68	promote equity	support fairness
69	ensure accountability	create answerability
70	protect welfare	safeguard well-being
71	create an incentive	encourage behaviour
72	reduce inequality	decrease unevenness
73	expand access	extend practical reach
74	strengthen governance	improve decision systems
75	build capacity	develop future capability
76	maintain standards	preserve quality
77	establish guidelines	create guiding principles
78	follow procedures	use prescribed steps
79	meet standards	satisfy quality threshold
80	assess outcomes	judge results
81	use precise language	control meaning
82	maintain formal tone	control register
83	adopt an appropriate register	fit audience/purpose
84	structure an argument	organise reasoning
85	organise ideas	arrange information
86	clarify meaning	remove confusion
87	express uncertainty	calibrate confidence
88	signal contrast	mark difference
89	show causation	demonstrate causal link
90	introduce evidence	bring support into text
91	integrate sources	combine evidence
92	synthesize information	build new understanding
93	paraphrase accurately	preserve source meaning
94	summarise concisely	compress essentials
95	explain significance	show why it matters
96	develop coherence	build logical unity
97	improve cohesion	strengthen textual links
98	avoid ambiguity	prevent multiple readings
99	make a distinction	state meaningful difference
100	support interpretation	make reading defensible

How academic collocations are built

Students often learn collocations as isolated pairs. That is useful at first, but the deeper system is grammatical. Many academic combinations belong to recurring architectures. Once the architecture is visible, students can recognise and produce new partnerships more quickly.

1. Verb + noun

This is the dominant pattern in the Top 100: analyse evidence, assess impact, provide evidence, draw a conclusion, allocate resources, implement a policy, maintain standards. The verb names the intellectual or operational action; the noun names what is acted upon. A strong learner stores the phrase as a chunk but also notices families: evidence can be gathered, provided, cited, analysed, evaluated and integrated, each with a different purpose.

2. Verb + adjective + noun

Examples include use precise language, maintain formal tone, and adopt an appropriate register. The adjective carries the quality being controlled. Students should not remove it mechanically: use language is grammatical, but it loses the academic job of precision.

3. Verb + preposition + noun

Contribute to change demonstrates why collocation learning must include prepositions. A student who knows contribute but writes contribute change has incomplete phrase knowledge. Other academic frames include consistent with evidence, relevant to the question, responsible for outcomes, accountable to the public. These frames are often more useful than memorising the isolated adjective or verb.

4. Adjective + noun

Although the numbered Top 100 centres on action phrases, students also need adjective+noun partnerships: credible source, relevant evidence, representative sample, significant difference, feasible option, sustainable model, explicit instruction, precise language, formal tone, unintended consequence. The adjective does more than decorate the noun; it selects a specific academic interpretation.

5. Noun + noun

Academic English frequently compresses relationships into noun+noun units: policy implementation, risk assessment, data collection, source evaluation, vocabulary practice, learning outcome, research question, evidence base, quality control, error analysis. Students should learn these as structures because the first noun often classifies the second.

Collocation strength: not every partnership is equally fixed

Some combinations are highly conventional. Draw a conclusion is much more established than *do a conclusion*. Others are semantically open: evidence can be provide, gather, cite, analyse, evaluate, present or integrate. The learning goal is therefore not “one noun, one verb”. It is a network of natural possibilities with different functions.

Noun	Useful verbs	Different jobs
evidence	gather, provide, cite, analyse, evaluate, integrate	collect, supply, attribute, inspect, judge, combine
claim	make, support, substantiate, challenge, qualify	state, defend, support strongly, question, limit
argument	formulate, develop, present, strengthen, structure	construct, expand, communicate, improve, organise
risk	assess, mitigate, reduce, manage	judge, lessen, lower, control over time
resources	allocate, manage, conserve, distribute	assign, control, preserve, share
policy	adopt, implement, evaluate, revise, enforce indirectly through rules	choose, operate, judge, change
standards	set, meet, maintain, enforce	define, satisfy, preserve, secure compliance

Wrong-collocation repair laboratory — 40 items

Each sentence contains a phrase that is grammatically possible, unnatural, or academically imprecise. Repair the collocation and explain the reason. This is one of the fastest ways to turn passive vocabulary into phrase-level control.

“The researchers made research on sleep.” → conducted research. English convention pairs conduct with formal research.
“The student did a conclusion after reading the graph.” → drew/reached a conclusion.
“The writer gave an evidence for the claim.” → provided evidence. Evidence is usually uncountable in this sense.
“The essay did an argument about transport.” → formulated/presented/developed an argument, depending the intended job.
“The source makes support for the claim.” → supports the claim or provides support.
“The study proves a possible relationship.” → indicates/suggests a possible relationship; claim strength is too high.
“The team reduced the risk completely.” → if the risk remains, write mitigated the risk; if truly removed, say eliminated the risk.
“The policy did access for rural users.” → increased/expanded access.
“The school gave resources into the weaker topics.” → allocated resources to the weaker topics.
“The committee made priorities.” → set/established priorities.
“The report did a limitation.” → acknowledged/identified a limitation.
“The essay answered a counterargument by mentioning it.” → addressed a counterargument, and ideally responded with reasons.
“The writer made the claim smaller.” → academically, qualified the claim.
“The report showed an uncertainty.” → expressed/acknowledged uncertainty.
“The agency did the policy last year.” → implemented/adopted the policy, depending whether selection or operation is intended.
“The inspectors did the regulation.” → enforced the regulation.
“The method made more efficiency.” → improved/increased efficiency.
“Repeated testing made reliability.” → enhanced/improved reliability.
“The researcher kept consistency by using the same procedure.” → maintained consistency.
“They made sure accuracy with two checks.” → ensured accuracy by cross-checking.
“The plan got its objective.” → achieved its objective.
“The design reached the requirement.” → met the requirement.
“The intervention finished the problem.” → solved the problem if resolved; otherwise addressed/mitigated the problem.
“The new method deleted the limitation.” → overcame the limitation if its effect was removed.
“The budget put limits on the project.” → imposed constraints or placed limits.
“The organisation has constraints from staffing shortages.” → faces constraints is more natural in formal prose.
“The teacher watched progress every week.” → monitored progress.
“The ministry made a framework for evaluation.” → developed/established a framework.
“The reform did equity.” → promoted equity.
“The audit made accountability.” → strengthened/improved accountability.
“The law saved welfare.” → protected welfare.
“The discount made motivation to apply.” → created an incentive to apply.
“The programme made less inequality.” → reduced inequality.
“The clinic made bigger access.” → expanded access.
“The training made capacity.” → built capacity.
“The team kept standards.” → maintained standards.
“Students did procedures exactly.” → followed procedures.
“The paragraph made coherence with however.” → developed/improved coherence, but only if the logic truly connects.
“The writer did ambiguity.” → created ambiguity or, for the desired repair, avoided ambiguity.
“The quotation made the interpretation correct.” → supported the interpretation; one quotation may not prove exclusivity.

Near-collocation discrimination

Choose the better collocation for the exact job. Both options may be grammatical; the task is semantic precision.

analyse evidence / evaluate evidence: choose analyse when breaking it into parts; choose evaluate when judging quality or sufficiency.
draw a conclusion / reach a conclusion: draw foregrounds inference from evidence; reach foregrounds the endpoint of reasoning.
provide evidence / cite evidence: provide supplies support; cite explicitly references it.
support a claim / substantiate a claim: substantiate is often stronger and more formal.
address a problem / solve a problem: address can mean respond to it; solve implies resolution.
assess feasibility / evaluate effectiveness: feasibility asks whether the plan can be carried out; effectiveness asks whether it achieves the goal.
increase access / expand access: both are natural; expand often emphasises extension to more users/areas, while increase is broader.
improve efficiency / enhance reliability: efficiency concerns waste/resources; reliability concerns dependable consistency.
set priorities / establish priorities: both work; establish is slightly more formal and institution-building.
maintain standards / meet standards: meet reaches the threshold; maintain keeps the level over time.
integrate sources / synthesize information: integration combines material; synthesis creates a new coherent understanding from that combination.
develop coherence / improve cohesion: coherence concerns logic and overall sense; cohesion concerns textual linking.
express uncertainty / qualify a statement: uncertainty signals confidence limits; qualification narrows scope or conditions.
clarify meaning / use precise language: clarification removes confusion; precision sharpens semantic boundaries.
compare perspectives / contrast approaches: comparison can include similarities and differences; contrast foregrounds difference.

Retrieval worksheet — function → collocation

Cover the Top 100 table. Read the function and retrieve one target collocation within five seconds. If several phrases are possible, choose the one that matches the exact function.

judge how much effect something had → assess impact
judge whether a method achieved its goal → evaluate effectiveness
inspect hidden starting ideas → examine assumptions
explain what numbers mean → interpret data
check whether a statistic is authentic → verify information
supply support for a claim → provide evidence
form a judgement from evidence → draw a conclusion
carry out systematic investigation → conduct research
construct a reasoned case → formulate an argument
make a claim narrower → qualify a statement
defend why a choice is reasonable → justify a decision
judge whether a plan can actually be done → assess feasibility
think about what follows from a finding → consider implications
predict reasonable criticism → anticipate objections
play one part in producing a change → contribute to change
begin a reaction → trigger a response
reduce danger without eliminating it → mitigate risk
make a service easier to reach → increase access
use fewer resources for the same result → improve efficiency
keep procedures stable over time → maintain consistency
reach a planned goal → achieve an objective
satisfy a required condition → meet a requirement
take action on an issue without claiming it is fully fixed → address a problem
distribute scarce time or money → allocate resources
track development repeatedly → monitor progress
put a policy into operation → implement a policy
make sure a regulation is obeyed → enforce a regulation
choose a planned method → adopt a strategy
build an organised set of criteria → develop a framework
manage real trade-offs between groups → balance competing interests
support fairness under unequal barriers → promote equity
create answerability → ensure accountability
encourage a desired behaviour → create an incentive
develop future organisational ability → build capacity
keep quality at the required level → maintain standards
perform the expected sequence of steps → follow procedures
choose wording with exact semantic boundaries → use precise language
keep the level of language suitably formal → maintain formal tone
fit vocabulary and style to audience and purpose → adopt an appropriate register
organise claims and evidence into logical order → structure an argument
make an unclear idea easier to understand → clarify meaning
show that certainty is limited → express uncertainty
make a difference between ideas visible → signal contrast
bring supporting material into a paragraph → introduce evidence
combine several sources in one line of reasoning → integrate sources
create a new understanding from several inputs → synthesize information
restate source meaning faithfully → paraphrase accurately
state essentials briefly → summarise concisely
show why a fact matters → explain significance
state a meaningful difference explicitly → make a distinction

Collocation error codes

When a phrase is wrong, classify the error instead of merely crossing it out. This makes repair more efficient.

Code	Error	Example	Repair
V	wrong verb partner	*make research	conduct research
N	noun form/countability	*an evidence	evidence / a piece of evidence
P	wrong/missing preposition	*contribute change	contribute to change
S	semantic job mismatch	solve a problem that still remains	address/mitigate the problem
R	register mismatch	get a conclusion in formal report	reach/draw a conclusion
C	claim-strength mismatch	prove from weak evidence	suggest/indicate/support
G	grammar pattern	*analyse about evidence	analyse evidence
X	conceptual boundary	effective = efficient	separate goal achievement from resource use

A student with repeated V errors needs phrase-family practice. A student with repeated C errors needs evidence-language calibration. A student with repeated X errors needs conceptual distinctions. “More vocabulary” is too broad a prescription.

Maren’s collocation laboratory — turning vocabulary into argument

Maren’s first draft often contains correct vocabulary used in weak partnerships:

The policy does an impact on access. The government should make research and do a conclusion. If it is good, it can make equity and make less inequality.

The ideas are recoverable. The problem is phrase architecture. She rewrites by identifying the intellectual job of each clause:

judge an effect → assess impact;
carry out investigation → conduct research;
form a judgement → draw/reach a conclusion;
support fairness → promote equity;
decrease unevenness → reduce inequality.

Before extending the policy, the government should conduct research to assess its impact on transport access. If the evidence shows that lower-income households benefit disproportionately, the programme may promote equity and reduce inequality. Any final recommendation should acknowledge limitations in the available data and qualify the conclusion where long-term effects remain uncertain.

The improved paragraph is not better because the vocabulary is more impressive. It is better because the verbs accurately encode the reasoning jobs.

Iona’s collocation laboratory — reading phrases as evidence signals

The report provides evidence of a short-term decline in congestion but does not establish causation. The authors acknowledge a limitation in the sample and express uncertainty about whether the same pattern would appear in smaller cities.

Iona treats the collocations as reading signals:

provides evidence → there is support, but strength must still be judged;
does not establish causation → association and cause are being separated;
acknowledge a limitation → the writers recognise a boundary;
express uncertainty → the conclusion is deliberately calibrated.

This allows Iona to paraphrase without inflating the source:

The report indicates a possible reduction in congestion, but its evidence is insufficient to show causation or support a confident generalisation to other cities.

Collocations are therefore not only production tools. They are part of comprehension because familiar phrase patterns reveal what kind of intellectual move a writer is making.

Leonie’s collocation laboratory — timed retrieval under pressure

Leonie works with function cues. She does not memorise the alphabetic list. She practises a five-second response:

Function	Fast collocation
supply support	provide evidence
question a proposition	challenge a claim
form a judgement	draw a conclusion
limit overstatement	qualify a statement
recognise a weakness	acknowledge a limitation
judge workability	assess feasibility
reduce harm	mitigate risk
distribute scarcity	allocate resources
put rule into operation	implement a policy
manage trade-offs	balance competing interests
support fairness	promote equity
keep quality stable	maintain standards
preserve exact meaning	use precise language
combine evidence	integrate sources
build new combined meaning	synthesize information

The clock comes after accuracy. If Leonie is still confusing support a claim with substantiate a claim, speed is premature. Timed retrieval should measure availability, not pressure unstable knowledge into guessing.

Reading transfer passage 1 — Education and digital access

A school district introduced a digital homework platform to increase access to practice materials outside lesson time. Early reports suggested that the system had achieved its objective of increasing submission rates, but the district later decided to assess outcomes more carefully. Researchers collected data on device ownership, internet stability, completion time and student performance. The findings caused concern because students without reliable home connectivity spent substantially longer completing the same tasks. The district therefore acknowledged a limitation in its original policy: availability of an online platform did not guarantee practical access. A revised plan allocated resources for loan devices and offline materials, while teachers continued to monitor progress. After one term, the new evidence supported the claim that targeted support could promote equity without abandoning the efficiency benefits of the digital system.

Why does the passage use increase access rather than simply “provide a website”?
What does achieved its objective tell you about the intended target?
Why is assess outcomes a stronger analytical phrase than “look at what happened”?
What is the job of collected data?
Why does caused concern not mean the platform was proved harmful?
What limitation was acknowledged?
Why is allocated resources more precise than “gave devices”?
What does monitor progress imply about time?
What is the difference between evidence that supports a claim and evidence that proves it?
How does promote equity differ from treating everyone identically?

Worked answers — Passage 1

Access includes practical ability to use the service, not merely technical availability.
The programme had a stated goal—increasing submission rates—and the early measure showed that goal was reached.
It signals systematic judgement of results, ideally against criteria, rather than casual observation.
It supplies measurements needed for later analysis.
Concern is a reason for investigation, not a final causal conclusion.
The policy assumed online availability translated into equal practical access.
Allocation describes deliberate distribution of limited support according to need.
Monitoring requires repeated observation over time.
Support increases defensibility; proof is a stronger claim and may not be warranted.
Equity can require different support when barriers differ.

Reading transfer passage 2 — Urban transport and public policy

City planners considering a new bus corridor first defined criteria for evaluation: travel time, operating cost, emissions, accessibility and reliability. They then evaluated alternatives, including additional buses on existing routes and a new dedicated lane. The dedicated-lane proposal appeared more expensive, but planners argued that it could improve efficiency by reducing delays and enhance reliability by making journey times more predictable. Critics challenged the claim, noting that construction would temporarily reduce road capacity. The final report addressed the counterargument by comparing short-term disruption with projected long-term benefits. It also expressed uncertainty about future demand and qualified the conclusion: the project was recommended only if ridership exceeded a defined threshold. This condition helped the city balance competing interests rather than treating cost, speed or environmental impact as the only priority.

Why are the planners said to define criteria before evaluating options?
What does evaluate alternatives require beyond listing them?
How does improve efficiency differ from simply increasing speed?
What would enhance reliability mean in this transport context?
Why does challenge the claim not mean the critics have disproved it?
What does it mean to address the counterargument?
Why does the report express uncertainty?
How is the conclusion qualified?
What competing interests appear in the passage?
Rewrite the final sentence using the collocation set priorities without changing the meaning.

Worked answers — Passage 2

Defining criteria first makes later judgement more consistent and less arbitrary.
The options must be judged against relevant standards such as cost, reliability and access.
Efficiency concerns the relationship between outcomes and resources, not speed alone.
Journey times would be more dependable and predictable.
A challenge raises reasons for doubt; it does not automatically refute the proposition.
The report recognises the criticism and responds with evidence/reasoning.
Future demand cannot be known with complete certainty.
The recommendation applies only if ridership exceeds a threshold.
Cost, speed, reliability, road capacity, emissions and access.
Example: The city refused to set a single priority in isolation; instead it ranked transport goals while considering their trade-offs.

Reading transfer passage 3 — Research quality and source use

A student researching sleep and learning found dozens of articles online, but she did not treat volume as quality. She first verified information by tracing statistics to original studies. She then examined assumptions behind claims that later school start times automatically improve grades. Some studies provided evidence of better alertness, but the student noticed that alertness and examination performance were not equivalent outcomes. To support her interpretation, she compared studies with different age groups and acknowledged a limitation: many results came from schools that had volunteered to participate. Rather than claiming that the research proved one universal effect, she summarised the findings concisely, expressed uncertainty, and synthesized information from several sources into a more cautious conclusion.

What is the purpose of verify information?
What does examine assumptions add to ordinary reading?
Why are alertness and examination performance described as non-equivalent outcomes?
What does support her interpretation imply about evidence use?
What limitation is acknowledged?
Why is summarised the findings concisely preferable to copying large passages?
What does expressed uncertainty protect against?
How does synthesize information differ from listing sources?

Worked answers — Passage 3

It checks that information is accurate and genuinely comes from the claimed source.
It tests hidden ideas that the argument depends on.
Better alertness may contribute to learning but does not automatically guarantee higher exam results.
An interpretation should be tied to textual or research evidence rather than assertion.
Volunteer schools may differ from schools that did not volunteer, limiting representativeness.
A concise summary preserves essentials in the student’s own structure instead of reproducing source wording.
Overclaiming and false certainty.
Synthesis identifies relationships and builds a combined understanding across sources.

A 30-day collocation mastery programme

Day	Practice	Purpose
1	Learn 1–10; retrieve verb from noun cue	evidence phrases
2	Meaning → phrase for 1–10	free retrieval
3	Learn 11–20; mix with 1–10	claim/research integration
4	Wrong-collocation repair	reject near-misses
5	Learn 21–30	argument architecture
6	Write five sentences using 1–30	production
7	Rest/light reading	spacing
8	Learn 31–40	comparison/evaluation
9	Retrieve 1–20 after delay	durability
10	Learn 41–50	change/performance
11	Passage 1	reading recognition
12	Repair every wrong phrase	error targeting
13	Learn 51–60	objectives/resources
14	Rest	spacing
15	Learn 61–70	policy/governance
16	Function → phrase speed drill	availability
17	Learn 71–80	capacity/standards
18	Passage 2	systems transfer
19	Learn 81–90	writing/register
20	Write one 250-word paragraph	independent transfer
21	Rest	spacing
22	Learn 91–100	sources/coherence
23	Passage 3	research transfer
24	Near-collocation discrimination	semantic boundaries
25	50 random noun cues	verb retrieval
26	50 random function cues	phrase retrieval
27	Timed mixed quiz	exam availability
28	Rest	spacing
29	Unseen essay + self-audit	transfer
30	Retest only fragile collocations	targeted continuation

Teacher deployment — 10 reusable lesson formats

Noun cue: give evidence; students generate six natural verbs and explain function differences.
Verb cue: give assess; students produce impact, risk, feasibility, performance and reject unnatural nouns.
Wrong phrase clinic: students repair *make research*, *do a conclusion*, *make equity*.
Register ladder: compare deal with a problem, address a problem, and mitigate a problem.
Function race: teacher says “reduce harm”; students retrieve mitigate risk.
Paragraph annotation: highlight every academic collocation and label its reasoning job.
Source integration: require introduce evidence, integrate sources, synthesize information in sequence.
Concept boundary: contrast meet standards with maintain standards, and address with solve.
Cross-subject transfer: reuse assess impact in Science, Geography and English.
Delayed unseen test: new sentences one week later, no original worksheet wording.

Parent use — ten minutes without turning home into another classroom

Choose five familiar nouns: evidence, claim, risk, resources, standards.
Ask for one natural verb partner for each.
Ask for a second partner with a different job.
Give one wrong partner and ask the child to repair it.
Ask for one sentence on a new topic.
Return to the same five nouns three days later without showing the list.

The useful question is not “What does mitigate mean?” every night. It is “What noun does mitigate naturally work with here, and why?” That forces the student to retrieve phrase knowledge rather than a definition card.

Frequently asked questions

What is a collocation?

A collocation is a combination of words that occurs naturally and conventionally together. The words may be grammatically possible in other combinations, but some partnerships are strongly preferred. English speakers normally say conduct research, draw a conclusion, mitigate risk and allocate resources.

Why are collocations important for Grade 10 vocabulary?

Because students at this stage often know individual academic words but still produce unnatural phrases. Collocation knowledge turns vocabulary into usable sentence material and reduces hesitation in reading and writing.

What are academic collocations?

They are recurring word partnerships common in formal learning, research and academic reasoning, such as support a claim, evaluate evidence, assess impact, address a counterargument, conduct research, interpret findings and synthesize information.

How should students learn collocations?

Learn the phrase with its function and grammar. Instead of memorising only risk, learn assess risk, mitigate risk, manage risk and the distinction among them. Then retrieve the phrase from a function cue and use it in a new topic.

Should students memorise entire collocation lists?

Some memorisation helps, but the goal is productive networks rather than a fixed list. Group phrases by nouns, verbs and intellectual jobs. Revisit them after delay and apply them in unfamiliar passages and essays.

What is the difference between a collocation and an idiom?

A collocation is a conventional partnership whose overall meaning is usually still connected to the component words. An idiom can have a meaning that is not predictable from the individual words. Draw a conclusion is a collocation; a strongly idiomatic phrase may require separate interpretation.

What is the difference between collocation and grammar?

Grammar tells you which structures are possible. Collocation tells you which possible structures are conventional and natural. A phrase can be grammatically interpretable yet sound unusual because the word partnership is weak.

How do collocations improve essay writing?

They make reasoning moves available as chunks. A student can quickly retrieve provide evidence, qualify a statement, address a counterargument, explain significance and make a distinction instead of constructing every phrase from scratch.

How do collocations help reading comprehension?

Familiar word partnerships are processed as meaningful units. Phrases such as express uncertainty or acknowledge a limitation also reveal what the writer is doing logically, which improves interpretation of argument and evidence.

What is a strong collocation?

A strong collocation has a relatively restricted or highly conventional partnership. Draw a conclusion is strongly established. Other words, such as evidence, accept many verbs, but each verb changes the function.

Why is “make research” wrong?

English convention uses conduct research, carry out research, or simply research as a verb. The error shows why translating word-by-word from another language can produce a grammatically understandable but non-native partnership.

Why is “give an evidence” usually wrong?

In academic English, evidence is normally uncountable. Write provide evidence or give a piece of evidence if one specific item must be counted.

Is “make a conclusion” wrong?

It is understandable, but draw a conclusion and reach a conclusion are much more conventional in formal academic English. The preferred choice also communicates reasoning more naturally.

How many collocations should a student learn at once?

Ten to fifteen can be enough for deep work if students learn function, grammar, examples and contrasts. Larger sets are useful later for mixed retrieval once the phrases are already familiar.

Should students learn collocations by topic or by grammar pattern?

Both. Topic groups support meaning: evidence, argument, policy, writing. Grammar groups support production: verb+noun, adjective+noun, verb+preposition+noun. Interleaving both creates a richer retrieval network.

Final unseen mixed test — 50 items

Which is more natural: make research or conduct research? → conduct research.
Which is more natural: do a conclusion or draw a conclusion? → draw a conclusion.
Supply support for a proposition → provide evidence / support a claim, depending the cue.
Question a proposition → challenge a claim.
Make a statement narrower → qualify a statement.
Recognise a weakness → acknowledge a limitation.
Judge workability → assess feasibility.
Judge goal achievement → evaluate effectiveness.
Reduce harmful exposure → mitigate risk.
Follow development repeatedly → monitor progress.
Distribute limited funding → allocate resources.
Put a rule into operation → implement a policy.
Secure obedience to a rule → enforce a regulation.
Create a structured set of evaluation ideas → develop a framework.
Manage trade-offs → balance competing interests.
Encourage a behaviour → create an incentive.
Increase fairness under unequal barriers → promote equity.
Improve answerability → ensure/strengthen accountability.
Develop future ability → build capacity.
Keep quality stable → maintain standards.
Satisfy the quality threshold → meet standards.
Choose exact wording → use precise language.
Fit language to audience and purpose → adopt an appropriate register.
Arrange claims, reasons and evidence → structure an argument.
Remove confusion → clarify meaning.
Show limited confidence → express uncertainty.
Mark a logical difference → signal contrast.
Bring support into the paragraph → introduce evidence.
Combine material from several sources → integrate sources.
Create new combined understanding → synthesize information.
Restate without changing meaning → paraphrase accurately.
Compress essentials → summarise concisely.
Show why a finding matters → explain significance.
Build overall logical unity → develop coherence.
Strengthen sentence-to-sentence links → improve cohesion.
Prevent multiple unintended readings → avoid ambiguity.
State a meaningful difference → make a distinction.
Give textual backing to a reading → support interpretation.
Which is stronger: support a claim or substantiate a claim? → substantiate is often stronger/more formal.
Which implies completion: address a problem or solve a problem? → solve a problem.
Which implies continuity: meet standards or maintain standards? → maintain standards.
Which concerns textual links: coherence or cohesion? → cohesion.
Which concerns overall sense: coherence or cohesion? → coherence.
Is contribute change correct? → No; contribute to change.
Is analyse about evidence correct? → Usually no; analyse evidence.
Is an evidence normally correct? → No; evidence or a piece of evidence.
Does show causation require stronger evidence than show association? → Yes.
Can a policy increase access without promoting equity? → Yes; wider availability can still leave unequal barriers.
Can a system meet standards once but fail to maintain standards? → Yes.
Complete the principle: Vocabulary becomes fluent when the right words start ______. → arriving together.

Continue the Secondary 4 vocabulary world

Top 100 Secondary 4 Vocabulary List | Academic Vocabulary Words for Grade 10 Students — broad academic-vocabulary flagship.
Top 100 Secondary 4 Vocabulary Practice | Grade 10 Academic Vocabulary Exercises, Worksheets and Quiz — retrieval and mixed testing.
Top 100 Secondary 4 Vocabulary List | Grade 10 Synonyms and Antonyms with Meanings and Examples — semantic boundaries.
Top 100 Secondary 4 Vocabulary List | Greek and Latin Roots, Prefixes and Suffixes for Grade 10 — morphology and unfamiliar-word decoding.
Top 100 Secondary 4 Vocabulary List | Context Clues and Reading Comprehension Words for Grade 10 — contextual inference.
Top 100 Secondary 4 Vocabulary List | Formal Words for Essays and Academic Writing.
Top 100 Secondary 4 Vocabulary List | Transition Words for Essays and Academic Writing.
Vocabulary Learning Hub.
Vocabulary for Secondary Students | Meaning, Precision, Retrieval and Use.

The final mastery test

Choose twenty nouns from an unfamiliar textbook chapter. For each noun, try to produce two or three natural partners. Then check a reliable dictionary or corpus-based reference. Record:

the noun;
one natural verb partner;
a second partner that performs a different function;
one common preposition if relevant;
one sentence from your own subject;
one tempting but unnatural combination to avoid;
the date you will retrieve the phrase again without notes.

If the student can retrieve phrase networks from new nouns, collocation knowledge has moved beyond this list.

The idea to keep

Knowing evidence is useful.

Knowing provide evidence, gather evidence, cite evidence, analyse evidence, evaluate evidence is more useful.

Knowing why those verbs are different is where academic control begins.

Words do not enter essays one at a time. They arrive in relationships.

Learn the word. Learn its partners. Learn the job the partnership performs. Then retrieve the whole phrase when the idea appears.

Deep phrase-family maps: learn a network, not a pair

The Top 100 gives one hundred high-value collocations, but real fluency comes from seeing how a noun or concept recruits different partners for different intellectual jobs. The following phrase-family maps are deliberately broader than the numbered list. They do not create a second Top 100. They show the network around the core collocations so students can choose by function rather than by memory alone.

Evidence family

Collocation	Job	Example
gather evidence	collect support	The team gathered evidence from interviews and records.
provide evidence	supply support	The study provides evidence of a short-term effect.
cite evidence	attribute support	The essay cites evidence from the original report.
analyse evidence	examine components	Iona analysed the evidence before interpreting it.
evaluate evidence	judge quality	The class evaluated whether the evidence was representative.
weigh evidence	compare competing support	The committee weighed evidence from several sources.
corroborate evidence	add independent confirmation	Independent records corroborated the evidence.
insufficient evidence	signal lack of quantity/quality	There is insufficient evidence for a universal conclusion.
compelling evidence	signal strong persuasive force	Repeated independent results produced compelling evidence.
empirical evidence	signal observation/measurement	The claim should be tested against empirical evidence.

Notice that evidence remains the noun while the verb or adjective changes the operation. This is why students should not store only “evidence = proof”. They need a functional network. A writer who wants to describe source collection needs gather evidence; a writer who wants to judge quality needs evaluate evidence; a writer who wants to show independent confirmation needs corroborating evidence.

Claim family

make a claim — state a proposition;
support a claim — add reasons or evidence;
substantiate a claim — support it strongly/formally;
challenge a claim — question its defensibility;
qualify a claim — narrow its scope or certainty;
reject a claim — conclude it should not be accepted;
accept a claim — treat it as sufficiently supported;
overstate a claim — make it stronger than the evidence allows;
central claim — the main proposition;
unsupported claim — a proposition lacking sufficient support.

These phrases are not interchangeable. A student can challenge a claim without rejecting it. A student can support a claim without fully substantiating it. A student can qualify a claim without weakening the argument overall. The collocation names the relationship between proposition and evidence.

Research family

conduct research — carry out systematic investigation;
design a study — plan the investigation;
collect data — gather measurements or observations;
analyse data — examine patterns and relationships;
interpret findings — explain what the results mean;
replicate a study — repeat it to test whether findings hold;
control variables — limit alternative influences;
report findings — communicate results;
acknowledge limitations — state boundaries of the method;
draw conclusions — form judgements from the evidence.

This family can be taught as a sequence. The collocations form a miniature research workflow: design → collect → analyse → interpret → report → qualify. Learning them as process language helps students understand research passages and write clearer evaluation sections.

Risk family

identify risk — recognise a possible harm;
assess risk — judge likelihood and severity;
mitigate risk — reduce likelihood or harm;
manage risk — control risk over time;
accept risk — knowingly tolerate it;
transfer risk — shift responsibility or financial exposure;
pose a risk — create a danger;
significant risk — risk large enough to matter;
potential risk — possible but not certain danger;
residual risk — risk remaining after mitigation.

These phrases are especially useful because students often overuse danger. The collocation network gives more analytical control. A system may pose a risk; an engineer may assess the risk; a safeguard may mitigate the risk; and management may decide whether the residual risk is acceptable.

Policy family

adopt a policy — formally choose it;
implement a policy — put it into operation;
enforce a policy — secure compliance where applicable;
evaluate a policy — judge its results;
revise a policy — change it in response to evidence or conditions;
policy objective — intended goal;
policy outcome — result produced;
policy trade-off — benefit gained at cost to another objective;
policy framework — organised principles governing decisions;
policy implementation — operational stage.

Policy vocabulary is often weak because students compress several stages into “the government did a policy”. The phrase family separates design, adoption, implementation, enforcement, evaluation and revision. That sequence supports more sophisticated causal analysis.

Access family

increase access — make access greater;
expand access — extend access to more users/places;
improve access — make access easier or better;
restrict access — reduce who can reach/use something;
equal access — same opportunity in a relevant sense;
equitable access — fair access accounting for barriers;
digital access — ability to reach/use digital resources;
access barrier — condition that obstructs use;
access requirement — condition needed for entry/use;
access gap — difference between groups in practical access.

Students should learn that “available” and “accessible” are not interchangeable. A resource may be technically available while cost, language, location or disability creates an access barrier. Collocations make those mechanisms easier to name.

Standards family

set standards — define expectations;
meet standards — satisfy the threshold;
maintain standards — preserve the level over time;
raise standards — increase expected quality;
enforce standards — secure compliance;
minimum standard — lowest acceptable level;
quality standard — formal expectation for quality;
consistent standard — same level across cases;
professional standard — expectation within a profession;
performance standard — expected level of performance.

The verb changes the stage. Set happens during design, meet during compliance, maintain over time, and raise when the desired threshold changes. This is the kind of functional distinction that improves both vocabulary and reasoning.

Cross-subject collocation transfer

English and Literature

High-value combinations include support an interpretation, analyse evidence, make a distinction, clarify meaning, signal contrast, explain significance, structure an argument and use precise language. A literature response becomes stronger when the collocation names the intellectual move. “This quote is good” becomes “The image supports the interpretation that the setting represents confinement.” “The two characters are different” becomes “The passage makes a distinction between private doubt and public confidence.”

Science

Science relies heavily on conduct research, test a hypothesis, collect data, interpret findings, control variables, ensure accuracy, enhance reliability, acknowledge limitations, assess outcomes and show causation. The phrase show causation is particularly important because students often overclaim from correlation. A careful conclusion may say the data support a relationship while the design is insufficient to show causation.

Mathematics and data reasoning

Useful combinations include identify patterns, interpret data, ensure accuracy, maintain consistency, meet a requirement, draw a conclusion, reduce uncertainty and assess outcomes. Even in Mathematics, collocation knowledge matters when students explain reasoning. “The values do something” becomes “The data show a consistent pattern.” “The answer is okay” becomes “The result meets the stated constraints and is consistent with the original conditions.”

History and Humanities

Students need compare perspectives, challenge a claim, acknowledge a limitation, consider implications, identify consequences, provide evidence, cite evidence, support an interpretation and synthesize information. Source-based answers improve when students move from summary to relationship. Rather than writing “Source A says X and Source B says Y,” they can “compare perspectives” or “synthesize information” by explaining where the sources agree, diverge or illuminate different parts of the same mechanism.

Geography and Economics

High-utility collocations include assess impact, contribute to change, increase access, improve efficiency, allocate resources, evaluate alternatives, balance competing interests, reduce inequality, build capacity and assess outcomes. These subjects frequently involve systems where one policy affects several groups. Collocations give students a language for trade-offs rather than pushing them toward simplistic “good/bad” conclusions.

Project work and presentations

Projects need set priorities, allocate resources, manage resources, monitor progress, meet requirements, maintain standards, explain a rationale, articulate a position and present an argument. These phrases help students write reflections that describe actual project mechanics rather than vague statements such as “we worked hard”.

Model paragraph laboratory 1 — argument

Prompt: Should schools restrict smartphones during lessons?

A blanket restriction may be effective at reducing visible phone use, but schools should assess its impact on learning rather than treating compliance as the only outcome. The strongest case for restriction is that constant notifications can contribute to fragmented attention. However, a fair policy should acknowledge a limitation: some students rely on approved devices for accessibility or learning support. Schools can address the problem by restricting non-essential use while preserving clearly defined exceptions. This approach may balance competing interests more effectively than either unrestricted access or an absolute ban.

Collocation audit: assess impact performs evaluation; contribute to calibrates causation; acknowledge a limitation adds fairness; address the problem avoids overclaiming complete resolution; balance competing interests names the trade-off structure.

Model paragraph laboratory 2 — evidence and uncertainty

Prompt: Does later school start time improve academic performance?

Several studies provide evidence that later start times are associated with improved alertness among adolescents. That finding can support the claim that sleep timing matters to learning conditions, but it does not by itself show causation between later starts and examination results. Researchers should examine assumptions about home routines, transport and existing study habits, because these factors may also contribute to change. A careful conclusion should therefore express uncertainty and qualify the statement rather than claiming a universal academic benefit.

Collocation audit: the paragraph deliberately distinguishes evidence, claim support, causation, assumptions and uncertainty. The collocations prevent the writer from collapsing different reasoning stages into “studies prove it works”.

Model paragraph laboratory 3 — policy and implementation

Prompt: Should public libraries remove late fees?

Removing late fees may increase access for families who avoid borrowing because of accumulated charges, but libraries should evaluate alternatives before changing policy permanently. One option is to adopt a strategy that removes fines for children while keeping replacement charges for lost items. The library could then monitor progress by tracking return rates, borrowing activity and replacement costs. If the change achieves its objective without undermining stock availability, the library would have stronger grounds to implement the policy more broadly.

This paragraph uses collocations to separate policy design, trial, monitoring, evaluation and implementation. That sequence makes the reasoning causal and operational rather than merely persuasive.

Model paragraph laboratory 4 — source synthesis

To synthesize information from several sources, a writer must do more than summarise them one by one. Suppose one report provides evidence that remote work reduces commuting time while another identifies a decline in informal collaboration. A third study may challenge the claim that productivity necessarily falls by showing strong results in teams with mature digital systems. A synthesis paragraph should integrate sources around the shared question: under what conditions does remote work improve or reduce performance? The writer can then make a distinction between task types, team structures and levels of digital maturity before drawing a conclusion.

Here the collocations are the architecture of synthesis. They tell the writer what to do with information rather than merely which vocabulary to display.

Extended collocation workbook — 60 cloze items

Complete each sentence with the most natural collocation from the Top 100. Do not choose by grammar alone. Ask what intellectual or operational job the sentence requires.

Set A — Evidence and research

Before accepting the article’s main proposition, the class had to ______ ______ from the original report. → verify information.
The researcher used interviews and attendance records to ______ ______ for the investigation. → gather evidence.
The essay did not merely quote the statistic; it used the statistic to ______ ______. → support a claim.
A second independent study helped ______ ______ that the effect was not unique to one school. → substantiate a claim.
The unexpected result forced the team to ______ ______ about how students used the platform. → examine assumptions.
After plotting the values, Leonie tried to ______ ______ rather than focus on one isolated point. → identify patterns.
Because the graph contained several unusual spikes, students had to ______ ______ carefully. → interpret data.
The authors used a larger sample to ______ ______ under more representative conditions. → test a hypothesis.
The class planned to ______ ______ before recommending any change to the timetable. → conduct research.
To make the conclusion transparent, the writer had to ______ ______ from the source rather than rely on general statements. → cite evidence.
The team ______ ______ at the same hour every day to reduce variation in measurement conditions. → collected data.
After the experiment, the students had to ______ ______ rather than simply copy the numbers into the conclusion. → interpret findings.
From the repeated pattern, Iona was willing to ______ ______, but only tentatively. → draw a conclusion.
The committee finally ______ ______ after comparing cost, access and safety. → reached a conclusion.
The model had to ______ ______ that demand would remain stable during the test period. → make an assumption.

Why these answers fit — Set A

Verify information is a checking action; gather evidence is a collection action; support/substantiate a claim concern the relationship between evidence and proposition; examine assumptions tests hidden starting ideas; identify patterns detects regularity; interpret data/findings assigns meaning; test a hypothesis evaluates a proposed explanation; conduct research describes the wider investigation; cite evidence attributes specific support; collect data is measurement gathering; and draw/reach a conclusion name the inference/end-point stage. The collocations form a research sequence rather than a bag of interchangeable verbs.

Set B — Argument and evaluation

Before writing the introduction, Maren tried to ______ ______ that could survive a reasonable challenge. → formulate an argument.
She then used examples and explanation to ______ ______ instead of repeating the thesis. → develop an argument.
During the oral presentation, Leonie had to ______ ______ clearly within two minutes. → present an argument.
A fair concession can sometimes ______ ______ because it reduces exaggeration. → strengthen an argument.
The essay could not ignore the cost objection; it had to ______ ______. → address a counterargument.
The report openly recognised its short duration to ______ ______. → acknowledge a limitation.
The phrase “under the tested conditions” helped ______ ______ that had originally sounded universal. → qualify a statement.
The committee used safety and access data to ______ ______ to extend the pilot. → justify a decision.
The teacher asked students to ______ ______ for using retrieval practice rather than rereading. → explain a rationale.
Iona could understand the issue but needed practice to ______ ______ clearly. → articulate a position.
The essay was stronger when it began to ______ ______ rather than describe each viewpoint separately. → compare perspectives.
The report ______ ______ by showing how the two methods handled cost differently. → contrasted approaches.
Students must ______ ______ such as effectiveness and efficiency because the terms control different dimensions. → distinguish concepts.
Before judging the proposals, the class had to ______ ______ for success. → define criteria.
Once the standards were clear, they could ______ ______ consistently to every option. → apply criteria.

Why these answers fit — Set B

Formulate constructs, develop expands, present communicates, and strengthen improves an argument. Address a counterargument names a response to opposition. Acknowledge a limitation recognises a boundary. Qualify a statement narrows scope or certainty. Justify a decision supplies reasons. Explain a rationale makes the underlying logic visible. Articulate a position expresses the stance clearly. Comparison, contrast, distinction, criteria definition and criteria application form a separate evaluation sequence.

Set C — Change, systems and resources

The pilot study was designed to ______ ______ before national rollout. → assess feasibility.
The final paragraph should ______ ______ for families without private transport. → consider implications.
Rather than accept the first proposal, the team chose to ______ ______. → evaluate alternatives.
A serious policy review should ______ ______ as well as intended benefits. → identify consequences.
Maren improved the essay by trying to ______ ______ before the reader raised them. → anticipate objections.
The sharp decline in attendance began to ______ ______ among school leaders. → cause concern.
Heat, noise and poor sleep may all ______ ______ in concentration. → contribute to change.
The emergency alert was designed to ______ ______ without waiting for manual approval. → trigger a response.
Backup systems cannot eliminate every failure, but they can ______ ______. → mitigate risk.
A larger sample can ______ ______ around the estimated average. → reduce uncertainty.
Evening opening hours may ______ ______ for working families. → increase access.
Removing duplicate steps can ______ ______ without changing the final outcome. → improve efficiency.
Regular calibration can ______ ______ of the measuring instrument. → enhance reliability.
Using the same rubric across all classes can ______ ______. → maintain consistency.
Cross-checking the figures before publication helps ______ ______. → ensure accuracy.

Why these answers fit — Set C

The set moves from judging whether a plan is workable to understanding consequences and system performance. Assess feasibility is about realistic possibility. Consider implications asks what follows. Evaluate alternatives judges options. Identify consequences names outcomes. Anticipate objections predicts challenge. Cause concern signals a reason for attention. Contribute to change calibrates partial causation. Trigger a response names initiation. Mitigate risk reduces harm. The remaining phrases distinguish uncertainty, access, efficiency, reliability, consistency and accuracy—six different dimensions students should not collapse.

Set D — Policy, standards and writing

The programme was successful because it managed to ______ ______ set at the beginning of the year. → achieve an objective.
The design could not be approved until it could ______ ______ for fire safety. → meet a requirement.
The revised timetable was intended to ______ ______ of overcrowding, though it could not eliminate congestion completely. → address a problem.
If a new process removes the barrier completely, it may ______ ______ rather than merely reduce it. → solve a problem.
The second study used a larger sample to ______ ______ of the original pilot. → overcome a limitation.
Limited staffing may ______ ______ on how quickly the service can expand. → impose constraints.
Small organisations often ______ ______ that larger institutions can absorb more easily. → face constraints.
The budget committee must ______ ______ among staffing, equipment and training. → allocate resources.
After allocation, managers still need to ______ ______ throughout the year. → manage resources.
Weekly check-ins help the team ______ ______ against the project timeline. → monitor progress.
A government may announce a policy quickly but need months to ______ ______. → implement a policy.
Rules have little effect if agencies cannot ______ ______ consistently. → enforce a regulation.
The school decided to ______ ______ based on retrieval, spacing and error analysis. → adopt a strategy.
The research group had to ______ ______ for judging source quality. → develop a framework.
When resources are scarce, leaders must ______ ______ rather than call everything equally urgent. → set priorities.

Why these answers fit — Set D

This set distinguishes goal achievement, requirements, problem response, constraints, resource allocation, monitoring and policy operation. Notice the sequence: a system can face constraints, allocate resources, adopt a strategy, develop a framework, set priorities, and then monitor progress. Collocations create a vocabulary for the operating logic of a system.

Preposition frames that students should learn whole

Some collocation errors are actually frame errors. Learn the whole pattern rather than the headword alone.

Frame	Example	Common error
contribute to + noun	contribute to change	*contribute change
relevant to + noun	relevant to the question	*relevant for the question in some contexts
consistent with + noun	consistent with the evidence	*consistent to
responsible for + noun	responsible for implementation	*responsible of
accountable to + person/body	accountable to the public	*accountable with
accountable for + action/outcome	accountable for decisions	*accountable of
access to + noun	access to education	*access of education
impact on + noun	impact on attendance	*impact to
effect on + noun	effect on performance	*effect to
associated with + noun	associated with higher risk	*associated to
distinguish between A and B	distinguish between access and availability	*distinguish access with availability
contrast A with B	contrast method A with method B	*contrast A to B in many learner contexts
allocate X to Y	allocate resources to schools	*allocate resources for schools when assignment is meant
qualify X by Y	qualify the claim by adding a condition	missing relationship marker
evidence for a claim	evidence for the explanation	*evidence of the explanation when support is meant
evidence of a phenomenon	evidence of decline	confusing support-for with sign-of
criterion for evaluation	criterion for success	*criterion of success in some contexts
limitation of a study	limitation of the method	*limitation for the method
alternative to X	alternative to a ban	*alternative of
implications for X	implications for policy	*implications to policy

Register clinic — ordinary phrase, academic phrase, overdone phrase

Academic collocations help because they are precise, not because they are more formal at any cost. Compare the three columns.

Ordinary but usable	Academic and precise	Overdone / risky
look at the evidence	analyse the evidence	interrogate the evidentiary corpus when simple analysis is meant
see if it works	evaluate effectiveness	ascertain operational efficaciousness
think about problems	consider implications	contemplate multifarious ramifications
deal with the problem	address the problem	ameliorate the problematic paradigm
lower the risk	mitigate risk	attenuate risk exposure unnecessarily
give support	provide evidence	proffer evidentiary substantiation everywhere
make the point clearer	clarify meaning	elucidate semantic intentionality when not needed
make it fairer	promote equity	instantiate distributive equitability without definition
put the rule into action	implement the policy	operationalise the regulatory paradigm when policy is enough
combine the sources	synthesize information	synergistically amalgamate textual inputs

The middle column is not always mandatory. Sometimes the ordinary phrase is clearer. The principle is to choose the collocation that performs the reasoning job naturally without drawing attention to itself.

Editing clinic — turn weak Grade 10 prose into controlled academic English

Weak draft 1

The government did research and found that the plan was good. It made access better and made less inequality. There were some bad things but the government said them and continued.

Revised:

The government conducted research to assess the impact of the programme. The findings suggested that the policy had increased access and may have reduced inequality for some groups. However, the report also acknowledged limitations in the data and qualified the conclusion before recommending continued implementation.

The revision improves more than vocabulary. The collocations force clearer logic: research → impact assessment → findings → access/inequality → limitations → qualified recommendation.

Weak draft 2

The source says the writer is right. Another source says something similar. Therefore the argument is proven and there is no other view.

Revised:

The first source provides evidence supporting the writer’s claim, while the second source independently corroborates part of the same pattern. Together, the sources strengthen the argument, but they do not eliminate every alternative explanation. A careful response should therefore acknowledge uncertainty and consider implications rather than treating agreement between two sources as conclusive proof.

Weak draft 3

The school wants to do a rule about phones. It will make students focus and solve distraction. Teachers should do the rule strongly.

Revised:

The school plans to adopt a policy restricting non-essential phone use during lessons. Before full rollout, it should assess feasibility, anticipate objections involving accessibility needs, and define how staff will enforce the regulation. The policy may address the problem of distraction, but it should not be described as having solved the problem until outcomes are measured.

Self-scoring rubric for collocation production

Dimension	0	1	2
Natural partnership	unnatural/wrong	acceptable	strong conventional collocation
Meaning fit	wrong intellectual job	roughly suitable	exact function
Grammar/preposition	breaks	minor issue	fully controlled
Register	inappropriate	usable	well matched to context
Claim strength	over/understates	partly calibrated	matches evidence
Transfer	copies memorised example	minor adaptation	works naturally in new topic

A student scoring low only in grammar needs different repair from a student scoring low in meaning fit. The rubric makes phrase knowledge diagnosable rather than mysterious.

Apex practice principle: retrieve the partnership from the idea

The weakest form of collocation study is reading the phrase repeatedly. The next level is recognising which phrase looks natural. The stronger level is starting with the idea and retrieving the partnership without a word bank.

Idea: reduce harm → retrieve: mitigate risk.

Idea: respond to opposition → retrieve: address a counterargument.

Idea: judge whether it can be done → retrieve: assess feasibility.

Idea: preserve uncertainty → retrieve: qualify a statement / express uncertainty.

This direction of practice mirrors writing. During an essay, the student starts with an intended meaning, not with a visible list of vocabulary. Phrase-level retrieval therefore trains the route that real production requires.

Advanced collocation extensions — claim strength, causation and uncertainty

The Top 100 gives the core phrase inventory. The next step is learning how nearby phrases alter commitment. Academic English depends heavily on calibration: writers need to show when evidence is weak, suggestive, strong, causal, provisional or conclusive. The following extensions are not additional numbered entries. They deepen the semantic control of the original hundred.

Evidence-strength ladder

Compare these phrases:

is consistent with the claim — does not contradict it;
suggests a relationship — points toward a possibility;
indicates a pattern — gives clearer directional support;
supports the claim — makes the claim more defensible;
provides strong evidence — signals substantial support;
demonstrates an effect — stronger and more evidentially demanding;
establishes causation — very strong; requires design/evidence capable of supporting causality.

A student should not climb the ladder simply because a stronger verb sounds more academic. The correct collocation is the strongest one the evidence can safely carry. “The survey proves…” often overstates what a survey can do. “The survey suggests…” may be more accurate and therefore more sophisticated.

Causation ladder

is associated with — variables occur together;
corresponds with — patterns align;
may contribute to — partial causal role is plausible;
can influence — one factor affects another;
can trigger — initiates a response;
causes — direct causal claim;
is the primary cause of — stronger claim about causal importance.

Students should ask what the study design can actually support. A correlation graph may justify is associated with. A controlled experiment may justify a stronger phrase. A policy essay based on observational evidence should be especially cautious about moving from association to causation.

Uncertainty ladder

remains unclear — uncertainty is substantial;
cannot yet be determined — evidence is insufficient;
may indicate — tentative directional signal;
is likely to — moderate/high probability claim;
strongly suggests — substantial but not conclusive support;
is highly consistent with — strong compatibility;
can be concluded with confidence — stronger endpoint, only when warranted.

This ladder can be used during editing. Underline every certainty phrase in an essay. Ask whether the evidence is strong enough for that level of commitment. If not, change the collocation rather than simply inserting a vague disclaimer at the end.

Advanced evaluation families

Effectiveness family

evaluate effectiveness — judge whether the goal is achieved;
demonstrate effectiveness — show with strong evidence that it works;
improve effectiveness — increase goal achievement;
limit effectiveness — reduce the ability to achieve the goal;
overall effectiveness — combined performance across relevant criteria;
long-term effectiveness — performance over an extended period.

Students should avoid using effective as a synonym for “good”. The phrase must point to an intended outcome. A costly treatment may be highly effective but inefficient. A popular policy may be politically attractive but ineffective at its stated objective.

Efficiency family

improve efficiency — reduce waste relative to output;
increase efficiency — raise productive use of resources;
operational efficiency — efficiency of practical operations;
energy efficiency — useful output relative to energy input;
cost efficiency — output relative to financial cost;
efficiency gain — improvement in resource use.

Collocation work reveals the dimension being judged. If the issue is whether a programme works, use effectiveness language. If the issue is whether it wastes time, money or energy, use efficiency language. The noun partner often exposes the analytical criterion.

Feasibility and sustainability family

assess feasibility — judge whether it can be done;
technical feasibility — can technology or engineering support it?
financial feasibility — can it be afforded?
operational feasibility — can organisations run it?
long-term sustainability — can it continue?
financial sustainability — can funding continue without unacceptable strain?
environmental sustainability — can it continue without unacceptable ecological damage?

A proposal can be technically feasible but financially unsustainable. This is a high-value Grade 10 distinction because many essays treat all positive criteria as one vague judgement. Collocations force the writer to state which dimension is being evaluated.

Advanced source-use collocations

consult a source — read/use a source for information;
cite a source — explicitly reference it;
evaluate a source — judge credibility, relevance and limitations;
corroborate a source — support it with independent evidence;
compare sources — examine relationships between them;
integrate sources — combine them within an argument;
synthesize sources — build a new understanding across them;
misrepresent a source — distort its meaning or claim strength;
paraphrase a source — restate it in new wording;
attribute a claim — make clear who made it.

These phrases can become a checklist for research writing. Students should be able to say not only “I used three sources” but what they did with them. Did they merely consult them? Did they compare them? Did they integrate evidence? Did they synthesize competing explanations? Phrase choice reveals the depth of source work.

Advanced paragraph-control collocations

state a thesis — present the central position;
develop a point — expand a specific idea;
provide context — supply necessary background;
introduce evidence — bring support into the paragraph;
explain relevance — show why the evidence matters to the claim;
signal contrast — mark a meaningful difference;
establish a link — make a relationship explicit;
maintain focus — keep the paragraph centred on its job;
develop coherence — build overall logic;
improve cohesion — strengthen textual connections;
draw the paragraph together — close the reasoning unit coherently.

Students sometimes think essay improvement means adding “Furthermore”, “Moreover” and “On the other hand”. Those are surface signals. The deeper paragraph work is to introduce, support, explain, connect and qualify. Collocations can be taught as verbs for revision: what does this sentence do?

Final production test — eight unseen prompts

Choose one prompt. Write 350–500 words without looking at the Top 100. After writing, underline every academic collocation you used and classify its job: evidence, argument, evaluation, systems, policy, source use, or writing control.

Should schools replace some written homework with supervised practice?
Should cities charge private vehicles to enter crowded central areas?
Does artificial intelligence improve access to education or widen inequality?
Should public agencies publish the data used to justify major decisions?
Should school start times be moved later for teenagers?
Can online healthcare expand access without reducing quality?
Should governments subsidise renewable energy even when short-term costs rise?
Is examination performance a sufficient measure of educational success?

Post-writing collocation audit

Did you provide evidence or merely make claims?
Did you support a claim with material relevant to it?
Did you acknowledge a limitation where the evidence was incomplete?
Did you qualify a statement whose scope was too broad?
Did you address a counterargument rather than mention it?
Did you assess feasibility separately from desirability?
Did you distinguish effectiveness from efficiency?
Did you consider implications for different groups?
Did you balance competing interests where trade-offs were real?
Did you use precise language instead of difficult language for display?
Did you introduce evidence and explain its relevance?
Did you integrate sources or list them separately?
Did you paraphrase accurately without changing claim strength?
Did you explain significance instead of repeating the evidence?
Did you avoid ambiguity in pronouns, scope and causal claims?

Sample production response — public transport and access

Making public transport cheaper can increase access to employment and education, but a fare reduction should not be evaluated by ridership alone. Policymakers should define criteria that include access, operating cost, service reliability and long-term sustainability. They should also gather evidence about which groups currently face the greatest transport barriers. If lower fares mainly benefit passengers who would have travelled anyway, the policy may have limited effect on inequality. By contrast, targeted subsidies may promote equity more efficiently if they reach households for whom fares are a genuine barrier. A fair evaluation should therefore compare alternatives, assess impact across income groups, and acknowledge limitations in short-term data. If a pilot shows higher job access without unsustainable operating costs, the evidence may support the claim that targeted subsidies are both socially beneficial and financially feasible. However, the conclusion should remain qualified until longer-term outcomes are available.

Notice the density of collocations. They do not make the paragraph sound artificial because every phrase performs a job. Increase access identifies the intended effect. Define criteria sets the evaluation method. Gather evidence supplies data. Promote equity names the fairness objective. Compare alternatives prevents one-option reasoning. Assess impact judges consequences. Acknowledge limitations controls confidence. Support the claim links evidence and proposition. Qualified conclusion prevents overstatement.

Sample production response — AI and education

Generative AI can expand access to explanation and feedback, but schools should assess outcomes rather than assume that easier access automatically improves learning. A student who receives instant answers may complete work faster without developing stronger independent reasoning. Schools should therefore develop a framework that distinguishes productive assistance from task replacement. Such a framework could establish guidelines for brainstorming, feedback and language support while requiring students to show their own reasoning in assessed work. Teachers should monitor progress and collect data on whether students become more or less independent over time. The evidence may eventually support a claim that AI improves learning under specific conditions, but current conclusions should express uncertainty where long-term effects remain unclear. A sensible policy should balance competing interests: access to useful tools, integrity of assessment, student privacy and the need to build genuine capability.

Again, the collocations carry the argument. They help separate access, outcomes, framework design, guidelines, monitoring, data collection, evidential support, uncertainty and trade-offs. This is why collocation knowledge is a reasoning tool as much as a language tool.

Final teacher assessment: four levels of collocation control

Level	What the student can do	Next move
1. Recognition	chooses the natural phrase from options	remove choices
2. Retrieval	produces the collocation from a noun or function cue	add sentence context
3. Discrimination	chooses among near-collocations by function	add unfamiliar topics
4. Transfer	uses the collocation naturally in new reading/writing tasks	delay and retest

A student who can recognise conduct research but still writes *make research* in an essay is not yet at transfer. A student who can retrieve mitigate risk but uses it when the risk is completely eliminated still lacks semantic control. The final goal is not phrase recall alone; it is phrase selection under new conditions.

Closing principle

Academic vocabulary becomes powerful when students stop seeing words as isolated units and start seeing the partnerships that carry thought.

Evidence becomes more useful when it can be gathered, provided, cited, analysed, evaluated, corroborated and integrated.

Claim becomes more useful when it can be made, supported, substantiated, challenged and qualified.

Risk becomes more useful when it can be identified, assessed, mitigated and managed.

Policy becomes more useful when it can be adopted, implemented, evaluated and revised.

That is the shift from vocabulary knowledge to language control.

Do not learn only what a word means. Learn what it naturally does with the words around it.

Delayed-retrieval retest — one week later

Collocations should survive after the original worksheet disappears. One week after completing this article, close the page and work from the cues below. Do not aim for the exact wording of an earlier sentence. Aim for the natural academic partnership.

You need to judge whether a programme achieved its stated goal. → evaluate effectiveness.
You need to recognise that your study lasted only two weeks. → acknowledge a limitation.
You need to reduce the harmful effect of a known danger. → mitigate risk.
You need to distribute a limited budget among several priorities. → allocate resources.
You need to turn a formally approved rule into actual practice. → implement a policy.
You need to compare several possible solutions against the same standards. → evaluate alternatives and apply criteria.
You need to show that an opposing point has been considered seriously. → address a counterargument.
You need to make a universal statement narrower and more defensible. → qualify a statement.
You need to show why a result matters, not merely repeat it. → explain significance.
You need to combine several sources into a new overall understanding. → synthesize information.
You need to restate a source without changing its uncertainty. → paraphrase accurately.
You need to preserve logical unity across the whole paragraph. → develop coherence.
You need to strengthen sentence-to-sentence linguistic links. → improve cohesion.
You need to make a service practically easier for more people to use. → expand access or increase access, depending emphasis.
You need to create a reason for people to change behaviour. → create an incentive.
You need to make decision-makers answerable for what they do. → ensure accountability or strengthen accountability.
You need to keep the same required quality across time. → maintain standards.
You need to satisfy the minimum required quality now. → meet standards.
You need to watch performance repeatedly over time. → monitor progress.
You need to preserve exact semantic boundaries in a formal answer. → use precise language.

How to build a personal collocation notebook

A useful collocation notebook should not look like a dictionary copied by hand. Each entry should make later retrieval easier. Use one page or digital card for a noun family rather than one page for a single word.

Field	Example: evidence
Core noun	evidence
Collection verb	gather evidence
Supply verb	provide evidence
Attribution verb	cite evidence
Analysis verb	analyse evidence
Judgement verb	evaluate evidence
Strength adjective	compelling evidence
Quality adjective	credible / relevant evidence, depending the job
Preposition frame	evidence for a claim; evidence of a change
Common error	*an evidence
Own sentence	The report provides evidence of improved attendance.
Delayed retest date	one week later

Build similar pages for claim, argument, risk, policy, access, resources, standards, source, outcome and meaning. The notebook then becomes a phrase network. When the noun appears in an essay, several natural actions are already available.

The six questions to ask before using an academic collocation

Is the partnership natural? Would formal English normally combine these words?
Is the intellectual job correct? Am I analysing, evaluating, supporting, qualifying, implementing or merely describing?
Is the grammar complete? Do I need a preposition such as to, with, for, on or of?
Is the register appropriate? Is the phrase suitable for the audience and genre?
Is the claim strength calibrated? Does the phrase imply more certainty or causation than the evidence supports?
Can I use it on a new topic? If the phrase works only in the memorised example, it is not yet fully owned.

These six questions turn collocation use into a controllable editing process. A student who writes make research fails Question 1. A student who writes solve the problem when the problem merely becomes smaller fails Question 2. A student who writes contribute change fails Question 3. A student who writes an inflated phrase in a simple report may fail Question 4. A student who writes proves from weak evidence fails Question 5. A student who can reproduce a model sentence but not build a new one fails Question 6.

Final transfer challenge — from one topic to another

Choose five collocations and use each in three different subjects. For example:

assess impact — assess the impact of a literary choice, a scientific intervention, and a transport policy;
identify patterns — identify patterns in imagery, experimental data, and population change;
acknowledge a limitation — acknowledge a limitation in a source, a practical method, and an economic model;
evaluate alternatives — evaluate alternative interpretations, engineering designs, and public policies;
explain significance — explain the significance of a quotation, a statistical result, and a historical event.

If the same collocation survives across subjects while keeping its core function, it has become genuinely transferable. That is the point of a world-facing academic-vocabulary system: not to create one more list, but to give students language that follows them into new problems.

A collocation is mastered when the idea calls up the phrase, the phrase fits the sentence, and the sentence still works on a topic you have never practised before.