Few residents of the United States speak academic English in all situations every day. Most people regularly speak an informal variety: They speak in sentence fragments, they use slang, and they use regional forms. However, everyone is expected to use academic English to reach audiences in more formal situations, particularly in college or the business world.
As you aim to improve your performance in academic English, you might need to broaden the range of strategies you use. You might try some of the following:
Reading or listening activities
Doing grammar exercises
Using a dictionary or a thesaurus
Becoming familiar with the Academic Word List
Learning prefixes and suffixes
Keeing a vocabulary notebook or an editing log
Targeting specific areas for improvement
Such strategies provide practice that can help you gain familiarity with academic English.
sentence fragment A word group that is punctuated as a sentence but that lacks a subject, a verb, or both.
slang Very informal, nonstandard language, characterized by casual, inventive usage and often understood only by group insiders.
regional expression Usage that is current and accepted in some communities but may not be in others.