Alternative to “as-well-as” for an academic paper

Question

Is there some better alternative to phrase as well as for an academic writing? It sounds to me too informal.

The whole sentence is:

Improvements of both parts are possible as well as joining them into one piece of software.

Answer 1

The sentence, as is, does not indicate any real relationship between the 2 options other that both exist. A conjunction that showed a preference or a conditional relationship might add to the meaning and resolve your wording issue.

How about "While it is possible to improve both parts, the two can also be joined into a single piece of software." Or "The two parts may be addressed separately or may be joined into a single piece of software."

Answer 2

There’s nothing wrong with as well as in formal prose, but your sentence might be clearer written as ‘Both parts could be improved, or they could be joined into one piece of software.’

Answer 3

"and so is" may fit better into this sentence, so the new form would be:

Improvements of both parts are possible and so is joining them into one piece of software.

A better way to express that, though, is as follows:

Improving both parts is possible and so is joining them into one piece of software.

Answer 4

The two softwares can be individually improved, or made to work more cohesively as a unit.

Phrasing it this way allows for the softwares to be more integrated or re-written as a single piece of software. Monolithic architecture can be counter-productive unless the refactoring produces better modularity. But that's just me waffling on now.