Research has shown that phrasal verbs are very important in language use and especially in writing. These linguistic structures present serious challenges for L2 learners because they are often language specific and enormous in number. Due to their difficulty, it will be very helpful for language learning/teaching to develop these challenging structures in academic writing. This study explored the use of phrasal verbs (PVs) in a Persian EFL academic corpus in comparison with PV use in an English academic criterion corpus by utilizing a written corpus of nationally and internationally published research articles. Two corpora of learner and criterion were built in three main disciplines of engineering, social sciences and basic sciences. The corpora were compared using a quantitative method. The current research followed two main phases: (1) Identifying PVs used by Persian EFL writers versus English native writers in different disciplines; (2) Comparing the frequency of PVs used in each corpus. Our finding indicated some points. Firstly, the results show that the Persian writers use phrasal verbs less than the native writers in academic writing. Secondly, the result showed that the L1 factor do not play a key role in this respect. Thirdly, the avoidance of PV usage will diminish as proficiency increases. And finally, it showed that interdisciplinary variations positively affect learners' performance regarding writing and using discipline-specific words. This study delineates that writing instructors and syllabus designers need to concern with the use of PVs and calls forth the attention of researchers, language instructors, and materials developers towards this aspect of the English language. Keywords : Phrasal verbs, Corpus, Academic Language, Phraseology, EFL Learners.