IELTS Essay Writing : A simple guide

[saos@ngmo]

Seems as though most of you are bored with reading ready essay samples accompanied with help-me-correct-this appeals. You have been learning English and would rather look into the innards of essay creation process to get something useful for your own improvement. So would I.

I'd like to present my strategy to go about essay writing. If you do NOT like, tell me why. If you do, I am glad to be helpful.

Well, here is the task I found in a textbook on IELTS .

Enormous effort is put into researching and marketing 'the perfect potato crisp' while research into stress at work, for example, is ignored. How important are staff working conditions? Should employers research and improve the working conditions of their staff or should they concentrate more on their product?

The question as it stands implies you should speculate about what comes first – product or workers?
So it is an opinion essay.

If you decided on an opinion essay, give it a proper structure.

1. 1) Introduction is a must. You don't believe you could get a good grade without introduction, do you?
2. 2) 3 paragraphs are also necessary – three is a magical number. It can do wonders to your overall band score.
3. 3) Conclusion. You do not want to infuse your examiner with a feeling of incompleteness.


First of all, you should not wander off trying to find ideas in the darkest parts of your mind. We will get some obvious hints right from the assignment.

"Enormous effort is put into researching and marketing 'the perfect potato crisp'..." – Brilliant!
"research into stress at work, for example, is ignored ..." – Could not be stated better!
"How important are staff working conditions?..." – Oh! We know what you are up to. Of course they are!
"Should employers research and improve the working conditions of their staff?" - Lots of thanks, you've been most helpful providing ideas.
"... should they concentrate more on their product?..."- Devious, but thank you anyway for bringing it up again.

I think they have already written the better part of the essay. We should only rephrase these expressions to avoid the offence of plagiarism.

Inquisitive minds will easily complete the list of ideas with their own suggestions. Hard thinkers like myself might as well stop brainstorming right here.

I know, I know – you are going to blame me for this, because it is not sufficient to develop 3 paragraphs.
But brainstorming never ends. I am far from assuming that you will stop thinking after 5 minutes of initial excessive brain work and will begin writing down words in mechanical way dreaming of buying a new car.
There is also vocabulary building part, and you have a clear structure of your essay.

Opinion = in support of workers

* Introduction – topic and opinion in short
* Paragraph 1 - staff working conditions are important
* Paragraph 2 - employers should research and improve the working conditions
* Paragraph 3 - concentrating more on their product is bad
* Conclusion – short summary of paragraphs

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Rephrasing ideas
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In my opinion, it is the hardest part. It is about your vocabulary, so nothing we can do but remember some basic expressions. If you get stuck, just write down whatever comes to your mind looking at the key words of the assignment. You will sort it out later on. Some of the words you will insert into sentences, the rest will stay untouched. It surely pays off; you would not bother thinking of necessary vocabulary as you write.

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Example vocabulary
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Key words:

research analyze, explore, inquire, investigate, look into, study
marketing advertising, promoting, pushing products
working condition situation, state, work load
stress at work pressure, nervous tension, difficulty, hardness, strain
ignore disregard, do not take into account, close the eyes to
employers managers, bosses
staff work force, personnel, employees
concentrate on the product consider closely, direct attention, fix attention, focus, give attention

do a lot of damage to overall productivity
friendly environment

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Beginning to write
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Introduction.

Earlier, we agreed to fight against staff overload. Let state the problem and introduce our opinion.
(Simply speaking, let's rewrite the assignment).

Nowadays, most businesses concerned primarily with improving and pushing products at all costs, therefore neglecting the strain this strategy puts on their personnel. I believe it is of vital importance to restrain excessive work load. I also think employers should pay more attention to organizing friendly working environment for their employees.

OK, it is sleeping time... I am tired and will have no more of this nonsense.
If you are not satisfied call my customer service, otherwise look forward to the next part – Paragraphs.

P.S. I might be absolutely wrong. Feel free to destroy my carefully thought-out system, but don't forget to suggest something more useful instead. I will appreciate if you supply supporting ideas for the paragraphs of the essay according to my plan.

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PARAGRAPHS ...
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Sounds frightening... But we'll make it if we follow simple rules.

The first rule - KEEP IT AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE

Be practical – simple ideas come easy and take less effort to develop.
Don't be tempted to amaze your examiner with profound knowledge of slang, idioms and pedantic words. Different styles, used in one essay, may produce a funny alienating mixture. Of course, I wouldn't vote for dull writing. A bit of variety never hurts.

The second rule – DEVELOP YOUR PARAGRAPHS

A good paragraph must have
1) Topic sentence (statement)
2) Arguments – 3 arguments advisable, each followed by
3) Supporting details
4) Transition words and markers

To illustrate this, let's suppose a model task.

How could I make you put off by my repulsive appearance? I really need to be persuasive.

I could arrange it in order of development steps.

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THE WORST
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I am ugly (only statement, undeveloped - no arguments, no supporting details).

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SLIGHTLY BETTER
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I am ugly. I am old, bald and untidy (statement, 3 arguments, no supporting details)

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MUCH BETTER
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Statement - I am ugly.

Argument1 - I am old.
Supporting detail 1 - I was born before the World War II.

Argument 2 - I am bald.
Supporting detail 2 - You could see your reflection in the top of my head.

Argument 3 - I am untidy.
Supporting detail 3 - I have dirty marks all over my clothes.

Summary
(The gaps are here to be filled in with additional words that make your writing smooth or cohesive.)

... I am ugly. ... I am old. I was born before the World War Two. ... I am bald. You could see your reflection in the top of my head. ... I am untidy. I have dirty marks all over my clothes.

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THE BEST
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(transition words and markers added)

In my opinion, I am ugly. First of all, I am old. I was born before the World War II. Secondly, I am bald. You could see your reflection in the top of my head. Finally, I am untidy. I have dirty marks all over my clothes.

Of course, you may go further and link a pair "argument – example" into one sentence using additional transitions, but it would not change the idea of the paragraph and, therefore, up to you to decide.

OK, let's go on to our task and apply our strategy to the first paragraph.

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Task
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Enormous effort is put into researching and marketing 'the perfect potato crisp' while research into stress at work, for example, is ignored. How important are staff working conditions? Should employers research and improve the working conditions of their staff or should they concentrate more on their product?

Introduction

Nowadays, most businesses are concerned primarily with improving and pushing products at all costs, therefore neglecting the strain this strategy puts on their personnel. I believe it is of vital importance to restrain excessive work load. I also think employers should pay more attention to organizing friendly working environment for their employees.

First paragraph

In my point of view, conditions that employers provide for their personnel are very important. Fist of all, uncomfortable offices affect the pace of work. Extra efforts to keep everything organized may become the biggest time wasters. Secondly, inconvenient timetables influence labour productivity. Repetitive long hours at work get workers exhausted. Finally, relations between managers and employees matter. Unfriendly atmosphere undermine self-esteem, co-operation and ability of staff to come up with creative ideas.

Timing issues and MY ESSAY

Time could kill your essay as well as bad structure and poor vocabulary. But do not try to kill time yourself. Allow no more than a minute for panicking, sweating and jittering, then stop. Has it put down a single word for you? I guess no.

If at the end of your panicking session the only sentence that comes to your mind is "What am I going to do?" look at your watch. Notice down the time. Set 10 minutes for completing what I have already described in my first post. I strongly advise you against exceeding the 10-minute limit for this part. No use trying to cram down a further lot of information if you have no time to develop it. What is done is done. Take the next step – paragraphs.

Another 30 minutes should be wisely distributed. Time you will spend on each paragraph depends on your ability to produce consistent chunks of text approximately 50 – 70 words in length. The words left to build up a 250 word essay might be divided between the introduction and conclusion. In my case it takes about 7-8 minutes per paragraph.

Several minutes (6 to 9) to the deadline might be devoted to writing a short conclusion and proofreading

Well, that's how it works.

Actually, I didn't try to work against the clock since I had been writing this essay on separate occasions. But I have done it for educational purposes and it has proved itself viable under time pressure.

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Task
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Enormous effort is put into researching and marketing 'the perfect potato crisp' while research into stress at work, for example, is ignored. How important are staff working conditions? Should employers research and improve the working conditions of their staff or should they concentrate more on their product?

Essay

Nowadays, most businesses are concerned primarily with improving and pushing products at all costs, therefore neglecting the strain this strategy puts on their personnel. I believe it is of vital importance to restrain excessive work load. I also think employers should pay more attention to organizing friendly working environment for their employees.

In my point of view, conditions that employers provide for their personnel are very important. First of all, uncomfortable offices affect the pace of work. Extra efforts to keep everything organized may become the biggest time wasters. Secondly, inconvenient timetables influence labour productivity. Repetitive long hours at work get workers exhausted. Finally, relations between managers and employees matter. Unfriendly atmosphere undermine self-esteem, co-operation and ability of staff to come up with creative ideas.

I convinced that researching and improving employees working conditions is rewarding. To begin with, improving workplace is an integral part of effective personnel policy. It helps a company become the employer of choice for skilled workers. Furthermore, neglecting to monitor the wellness of staff leads to extra expenses since more workers would use the insurance plan. Finally, businesses seeking efficiency should gather information on the latest advances in work space ergonomics. Strong competition forces employers to upgrade staff work areas to boost the performance of staff.

I also feel that concentrating solely on the product is ineffective. For one thing, marketing, even most aggressive, would not make the product any better. "The perfect potato crisp" results from the work of well-trained staff. For another, companies overlooking workers' needs in favour of merchandise are unstable. Staff retention problems restrain the company's potential to come regularly on the marker with new offers. At last, neglecting staff damages the reputation of a manufacturer. Customers might refuse buying a product, if they know it is made through hard exploitation of workers.

To summarize, employers should accept working conditions as being very important to successful company development. Disregarding researching and improving working conditions undermines enormous effort put into promotion of the product.
Thank you for your patience,