IELTS Academic Writing tips for students

- Read the questions carefully and underline the important words

- It must be clearly legible, but there is nothing wrong with crossing out (rather than erasing), adding words above the line with a little arrow to show where the word should go, or even inserting whole lines with an arrow, as long as it is very clear what you mean

- Avoid one sentence paragraphs, with the possible exception of the first paragraph of Task 1 or the conclusion of Task 2 if you have already given your point of view in the introduction and you are running out of time


- Try to use words and expressions other than those that are written in the questions, but don’t worry about it too much

- When you are doing practice exams at home, recreate the exam conditions as closely as possible. Don’t look at the question until you are ready to start writing, don’t take a break between Task 1 and Task 2, and don’t use a dictionary or write it on a computer

- If you have longer to prepare for the exam, it is worth doing the first few practice papers on a computer to learn from SpellCheck. Make sure you write down its useful spelling corrections and learn them

- When you have finished a timed task, look at the model task, look in your textbook, use your dictionary etc to see how you could have written it better. If you are going to give it to a teacher to check and they won’t actually be giving you a mark, give them a rewritten version so that they can concentrate on correcting the things that you have missed

For Task One

- Spend three or four minutes planning, and write a paragraph plan with very brief notes. This will help you analyse the main points to avoid this:

- Avoid describing the information point by point

- Make sure you check any times on the axes and use the correct tenses. For a line graph, it is likely to be Simple Past but could be Present Simple if it is something that repeats every day

- Possible paragraph structure: (1) Explain what the diagram(s) or graph(s) represent, with possibly some information such as what the axes represent. Try to use different words to those on the question sheet. (2) Explain what the things represented have in common, the general trends, or the most important information (3) Explain how they are different, some things that are different to the general trend, or some less important information (4) You don’t need to bother with a conclusion unless you are under length, so you can usually stop at paragraph 3. If you do need a conclusion, summarize what you said before in different words.

- If you need to combine information from two different graphs etc, you can use one paragraph for the most important information from each, but it is better to divide it up in another way (as long as an idea of how to do so comes quickly and doesn’t make your planning time drift over 5 minutes)

- Remember that the information on the graph or diagram is simplified and that you’ll need grammar like articles in your writing

- Make sure that you practice all the types of tasks that could come up, including flow charts and tables of figures and tasks that include more than one source

- Don’t interpret the data unless they ask you to (very rare), just stick to describing it (but see first point above)

- Leave one or two minutes for editing

- Under no circumstances go over 20 minutes, as Task Two is more important. Get up to the minimum number of words, edit if you can, and move on

For Task Two

- Always write a brief plan, using about 5 minutes for this stage

- Brainstorm your ideas and try to organise them into paragraphs. If you don’t have enough pros or cons to make a paragraph, you’ll need to write a one sided argument (unless the question specifically asks for both sides). Make sure you still organise the ideas into clear paragraphs by making links between different ideas. The quickest way of doing this is often just to circle ideas to put them together.

- If you are going to give a one sided argument, state if you agree or disagree in the first paragraph (introduction). This doesn’t need to be your real opinion, just the side that you came up with most ideas for in the brainstorming stage. The conclusion can be difficult for this format, you basically need to just summarize what you said before (in different words and very briefly) and emphasize your point of view.

- If you are going to write a pros and cons, don’t give your view until the conclusion.

- The first few sentences of any Task Two should restate the question, analyse it and/ or say why it is topical, interesting and/ or important. The final line of the introduction should say what is coming up (basically explaining the paragraph structure)- this shows how important planning is!

- Avoid introducing one or two new points in the final paragraph unless you are desperate to get up to the minimum number of words in time. If that is the case, if you have done a one sided argument you can write “Although there are many counter arguments such as…” If it is a pros and cons essay you can write “Due to the arguments given above and other relevant factors such as…, my view is that…” In both cases, just list points rather than expanding on any of them (which would make them worthy of a paragraph of their own).

- There are no points for good ideas, only for language. As soon as you have enough ideas to make a piece of writing, write!

Tips only mainly for those needing very high marks

- Try to avoid repeating language, use synonyms etc to avoid it

- Avoid phrasal verbs (but sometimes there is no non phrasal verb way of saying something, in which case it is okay)

- Try to use academic English (although you can get perfect marks without being very academic and formal, it can’t hurt and shows a high level)

- You can use British, American or Australian English and even mix them up a little if you like, but try to make your spelling etc as consistent as possible, e.g. don’t write “kilometer” and then “centimetre”

Yes, that was very briefly! I could (and do) go on for much longer than that in my classes…

Agreement? Disagreement? Comments below please: