—Previous studies have shown that phrasal structure, particularly complex noun phrases with phrasal modifiers, is a feature of advanced academic writing. Therefore, it would be important for those who plan to pursue further studies to learn to write in the way that is appropriate for academic writing. Using the manual annotation function of UAM corpus tool, this study compared the noun phrase use of Chinese EFL students’ writing with that of proficient language users. This study also discussed the significant differences found between these two groups in terms of noun phrase use and their implications for EFL/ ESL writing instruction.