IELTS Writing Task 2
IELTS Writing Task 2 Structure: Coherence and Cohesion Made Easy!
In this article we look at the IELTS Writing Task 2 Structure and an easy method for presenting your ideas in a logical way. I will give you a model that will make coherence and cohesion easy and guarantee that your essay will be well structured every time. This guide is for both the IELTS Writing Task 2 General and the IELTS Writing Task 2 Academic. First let’s take a look at the IELTS Writing criteria.
The IELTS Writing Criteria
The Coherence and Cohesion section is broken down into three specific criteria:
Logically organises information with a clear progression throughout
Uses a range of cohesive devices
Uses paragraphing well
For this lesson we will only be considering the organisation and paragraphing of the essay and the issue of cohesive devices will be covered in a future lesson.
Organisation
How does the examiner want you to organise your essay? For a Band 7 it should be logical with a clear progression of ideas throughout, while a Band 5 only requires that there is some organisation, but with a lack of overall progression.
Paragraphing
This is simply looking at whether you use paragraphs and how well you use them. For a Band 9 you need to manage them skilfully, a Band 7 requires that there is a central topic for each paragraph whereas a Band 5 allows for there not being paragraphs or that they are inadequate.
These two categories are fairly simple to understand. The question is how do you put them into practice and write essays that meet the criteria. How do write an essay with a clear progression of ideas? And how do you skilfully manage a paragraph? Instead of directly answering these questions, we are going to look more generally at essay structure, what the different parts of an essay are and what their function is.
The Building Blocks
There are basically three building blocks of an essay: the introduction, the main body and the conclusion. We will look at each in turn, discuss what their functions are and how you can use this as a model for all your Task 2 essays.
The Introduction: Say what you’re going to say!
The introduction to any piece of writing should inform the reader what that piece of writing is all about. To put this more simplistically, it should say what the piece is going to say. From reading your IELTS essay, the examiner should know what is the topic of discussion, what your opinion on it is and what the main reasons are. Let’s take a look at the essay example from the previous lesson to demonstrate what I mean:
In the modern world there is a movement away from written exams to more practical assessment.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this trend.
For the first section of the introduction we want to introduce the topic and give some background. An example opening here could be something like the following:
Never before has there been more variety in the manner in which students are assessed, with courses moving away from traditional written exams to practical assessment.
You should notice that here I have not simply rewritten the statement in the task, but have talked about how this is a recent trend. The next sentence might go on to talk about different kinds of practical assessment and when they are used. This would be followed by a section that gives the main advantages and disadvantages and whether or not I think this move is a positive trend.
The main body: Say it!
In this part of the essay the aim is to expand on and develop the reasons you already gave in the introduction. Normally this can be done with only two paragraphs, though sometimes a third will be required. In our example Task we have already given the main advantages and disadvantages so we need one paragraph discussing those advantages and another discussing the disadvantages. Each of these paragraphs should begin with a sentence that introduces the main idea of the paragraph, followed by the reasons for this and any relevant examples.
Conclusion: Say what you’ve said!
In the conclusion you should not be introducing any new information, but just summarising what you have already said. As the introduction was just telling the reader what you were going to say, we can just summarise this introduction to tell the reader what you have said. It is crucial here that you include your opinion and your main reasons for this opinion.
Making a plan
Most of what we have discussed in this lesson are actually issues that you need to address before you even start writing the essay. It is not possible to write an introduction that says what you are going to say if you don’t yet know what you are going to say. This is why it is vitally important that you write a plan before you start writing the essay. This plan will detail what you want to say in each paragraph of your essay and will include your main reasons and examples. It is always very clear when reading a student’s essay whether they have made a plan.
What I need to do in my essay
As we discussed in the last lesson on Task Achievement, the points we have covered in this lesson are not really assessing your level of English, but your ability to produce a structured piece of writing. Again much of the advice here would be true of any short academic essay, regardless of the language that it was written in.
So the points to remember are as follows:
Make a plan
Remember the basic structure
Say what you’re going to say! Say it! Say what you’ve said!
Limit the essay to 4 or 5 paragraphs.
With this model you will improve your IELTS Writing Task 2 Structure and with some practice there is no reason that you cannot be getting the higher bands in Coherence and Cohesion.
You can download the full requirements for Coherence and Cohesion here.