Academic Writing

The Academic Writing is made up of two different tasks. read the rest of the article to get to know each of the tasks:

Academic Writing -Task One

There are three basic things you need to structure an IELTS writing task 1.

1. Introduce the graph
2. Give an overview
3. Give the detail

We’ll look at each of these in turn.

1) Introduce the Graph

You need to begin with one or two sentences that state what the IELTS writing task 1 shows. To do this, paraphrase the title of the graph, making sure you put in a time frame if there is one.

Here is an example for the above line graph:

The line graph illustrates the amount of fast food consumed by teenagers in Australia between 1975 and 2000, a period of 25 years.

You can see this says the same thing as the title, but in a different way.

2) Give an Overview

You also need to state what the main trend or trends in the graph are. Don’t give detail such as data here – you are just looking for something that describes what is happening overall.

One thing that stands out in this graph is that one type of fast food fell over the period, whilst the other two increased, so this would be a good overview.

Here is an example:

Overall, the consumption of fish and chips declined over the period, whereas the amount of pizza and hamburgers that were eaten increased.

This covers the main changes that took place over the whole period.

You may sometimes see this overview as a conclusion. It does not matter if you put it in the conclusion or the introduction when you do an IELTS writing task 1, but you should provide an overview in one of these places.

3) Give the Detail

You can now give more specific detail in the body paragraphs.

When you give the detail in your body paragraphs in your IELTS writing task 1, you must make reference to the data.

The key to organizing your body paragraphs for an IELTS writing task 1 is to group data together where there are patterns.

To do this you need to identify any similarities and differences.

Academic Writing – Task Two (from blog.udemy.com)

1. Answer The Question You Are Asked

It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are: anyone can speed through a question and miss a vital piece of information or instruction. It’s generally considered good test taking skills to underline all important information. For Task 2, you should underline background information in the short passage (and key words in the question itself).

You do not want to simply write about the topic in question. Take the following sample question: “Do you support Mr. Anderson’s claim about violence in our culture?” You do not want to write about your opinion of violence; you want to write about Mr. Anderson’s opinion, which will be supplied in the accompanying passage, and give reasons why you do or do not support it.

2. Original Material

While it’s ok, and sometimes even encouraged, to use parts of the question or passage in your answer, don’t take entire sentences or sections from it. Even if you copy them in an acceptable manner, you are tampering with the ever-important word count. Usually the word count is either 150 or 250 words. You are expected to write AT LEAST that many words, but if you write more than 50 extra words (200 or 300, respectively) then you will lose points for lack of efficiency. When you copy sentences, your examiner will not count them as part of your word count, which means you could accidentally slip under the limit and lose points.

3. Time Management

For a 250 word essay, you should spend about 40 minutes on it (you have one hour to complete all of the writing section, so you will need 20 minutes for Task 1). While you will be feeling rushed to make sure you finish, it’s better to take 5-10 minutes to think about your response and map it out. That still leaves you with 30 minutes to write 250 words; just to give you an example, if you combine “A Brief Introduction” and “Tip #1″ from this post, that’s 290 words. What I’m trying to say is it’s not that many words and the examiner is not interested in how much you can write in 40 minutes. The examiner is interested in how well you write, so planning ahead is, truly, one of the most important things you can do.

4. Write The Essay First

As I briefly mentioned above, you have one hour to complete Tasks 1 and 2 of the writing section and it’s up to you how much time you spend on each task. Almost anyone will tell you to write the essay first. It carries more weight than Task 1 and this will ensure that you finish it on time. Still, try to keep the time devoted to the essay to 40 minutes or less.

5. Coherence and Cohesion Tip

This is one of the four grading criteria. You will be judged on how well you can string together thoughts, sentences and paragraphs. The most difficult thing for most people to accomplish is stringing together paragraphs. There’s actually a rather easy way to do this, assuming the paragraphs you are stringing together are coherent.

Example: Let’s say you are writing about the advantages and disadvantages of using coal as a source of energy. In your first paragraph, you might discuss the advantages, while in the second you discuss the disadvantages. How do you make the jump between paragraphs so that the reader can follow your train of thought? It all happens in the last sentence of your first paragraph; you just need to hint at what comes next: “While coal provides a relatively safe and reliable source of energy, it does not come without a number of detrimental side effects.” Now the reader is primed to read about coal’s “detrimental side effects.” And remember, cohesion accounts for 25% of your grade, so practice a few of these on your own.

6. Get Inside The Examiner’s Head

Keep in mind that whoever your examiner is, he or she will have read many hundreds of IELTS Writing Task 2 responses. You don’t need to blow them away with a Nobel-Prize winning response, but you do need to get their attention. The examiner is going to be looking for the four main criteria I mentioned, so make sure your essay looks organized and is easy to understand. It’s better to err slightly on the side of simplicity than to write something so complex the examiner cannot understand it. If you were the examiner, you wouldn’t want to have to retrace the writer’s steps to try to make sense of it.

You should get inside your own head, too, at least when it comes to deciding whether to take the IELTS or TOEFLs. This post on IELTS vs. TOEFLs can help you figure out which English language exam is right for you.

7. Lexical Resource Tip

Lexical resource can be very, very deceiving. Honestly, you don’t have to use long, strange or impressive words. Lexical resource merely refers to the variety of language you use. Whatever words you use, avoid repetition. When you’re finished writing your essay, you should go back and quickly see if you used any words multiple times, especially the easy ones: very, good, important, difficult, etc. All it takes is five seconds to change “very” to “extremely,” or “good” to “satisfactory” (or, if the situation permits, “excellent”).

If you really want to boost your lexical resourcefulness, I suggest taking a slightly more advanced writing class such as this Writing Strategies course designed to help professionals or students immediately refine their writing skills for success.

8. How to Score Above A Band 6

To score above a Band 6 (out of a possible 9), there are several things you can do to raise your chances for success. Your score is determined in the following manner: you receive a score of 1-9 on the four main criteria. The average of these scores is your final score. In other words, you have to perform well across the board to score highly.

Penalties: Penalties are the number one reason people fail to score higher than a Band 6. If you can avoid the penalties and write a respectable essay, you have an excellent change of scoring highly.

• Use Paragraphs: That’s right: just by using paragraphs, you quality for a higher score. Don’t just write one long paragraph; you will not score highly because one paragraph is not technically an essay. Use paragraphs and use them correctly. Check out this great blog post on paragraph writing examples for more rules and suggestions.
• Linking Words: This is half penalty, half skill. Basically, if you don’t use complex sentences, you cannot score above a Band 6 (it’s literally written into the rules). You should have a list of linking words at your disposal, so that you can easily form complex sentences.