The phrase "account for a certain" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing the reasons or explanations for a specific situation or outcome.
Example: "The study aims to account for a certain percentage of the population that was not included in the initial survey."
Alternatives: "explain a specific" or "justify a particular".
By the way, did you know that clothing retailers routinely bump their prices up to account for a certain percentage lost to shoplifting?
Some Web sites try to thwart the attackers by freezing an account for a certain period of time if too many incorrect passwords are typed.
I figure the companies account for a certain percentage of "cheaters," and I'm the kind of person who prefers to subvert any kind of marketing analysis.
In sociobiology, it is still considered respectable to use... the advocacy method... Author X provides a hypothesis to account for a certain phenomenon, selecting and arranging his evidence in the most persuasive manner possible.
This may account for a certain reticence on their part.
Like the owner of the twitter account for a certain bear in Glendale, two intrepid Angelenos are in a match of wits over who best personifies this potentially dangerous animal parked in the middle of our city.
Heat loss from the kiln shell accounts for a certain proportion of total energy input in a rotary kiln.
Heat loss from the shell of a rotary kiln accounts for a certain proportion of total energy consumption.
Heat loss from the rotary kiln accounts for a certain amount of the total energy input in cement production.
Perhaps the fact that the entire work was not on view accounted for a certain lack of depth, but a fragmentary structure seemed natural to its penetrating images.
We show that when one accounts for a certain linear phase factor, the core of the LS_NUFFT interpolator is in fact real and shift invariant.
