'an awkward attempt' is correct and usable in written English
You can use it when referring to something that wasn't successful due to it being clumsily done. An example sentence would be: She made an awkward attempt to introduce herself to the celebrity, but unfortunately, it didn't go well.
At one point, Mr. Ryan rescued Mr. Romney from an awkward attempt at humor.
In the fourth, Bradley stumbled again, all in an awkward attempt to duck the lethal accuracy that Pacquiao possesses in his left hand.
"Hyatt also attempted to isolate Olbermann from his professional representatives in an awkward attempt to form a close personal friendship with his new star".
There is a supernatural element here, too, and an awkward attempt to jam local historical figures into a story that is engrossing enough in itself.
Moments later, in an awkward attempt to make conversation while I sat between her legs, I said: "Your vagina looks like my vagina".
In that respect, new corporatism marks an awkward attempt to reconcile two ideas of "innovation" dating from the postwar years: the industrial kind, flourishing during hot and cold wars, and the iconoclastic kind, rising against the social mainstream.
Best Political Shoehorn – Jared Leto On the heels of other greatssuch as Marlon Brando or more recently David Bowie, 30 Seconds To Mars frontman Jared Leto accepted an award with a slightly awkward attempt to shoehorn in a political message.
Usher must know that, even as a father and husband, he needs to maintain the threat of an unmanageable libido, and so we get "Appetite," a spectacularly awkward attempt to fuse the old Usher and the new.
Mr Barak made a first, awkward attempt, saying that Labour would assail the "pig capitalism" of the right.
"I made a very awkward attempt to explain the unexplainable," he said, admitting the resulting political damage has been self-inflicted.
Sometimes, as with the Ten Walls scandal, this sensationalism is justified, but at other times, it appears a strange reflex an awkward attempt to make trivial, or at least fleeting, matters seem important.
