Organize your essay
Organizing your essay logically and correctly falls under the "Coherence and cohesion" assessment criteria of IELTS exam writing task 2.
We can't emphasize enough to read the four assessment criteria for writing task. Please spend sometime and go through band descriptors for band 5 to 9 for each criteria and write down what mistakes you are doing. EssayChecker checks your essay and helps you figure out where you are making most mistakes.
Following video by our IELTS teacher Shay explains four assessment criteria and on what you should focus on to get high band score for IELTS Writing.
Linking words and Paragraphing
You must express your ideas in a logical way with clear progression using linking words and phrases. Paragraphing is also very important to structure you essay into clear parts. If you don't use enough paragraphs or breakdown your essay in too many paragraphs, you will find difficult to score 7.0+ band score.
Let's see the band descriptors for paragraphing in detail. This is taken from IELTS official explanation for scoring in detail, you can download it here.
Please check this video to understand the fundamentals of your essay structure and paragraphing.
Tips for paragraphing
- Use one paragraph for Introduction and one for conclusion.
- In between, Use one body paragraph each for one idea you want to expand and explain.
- You should not have more than 2-3 body paragraph.
- Between each paragraph, Leave a space.
- Don't write one sentence paragraphs.
- Don't use bullet points, heading, sub heading and numbering for your paragraphs.
How many paragraphs are enough ?
As we saw above, we should have 4 to 5 paragraphs ideally depending upon the type of question. EssayChecker checks your essay for essay structure and provides you hint on whether you are using enough number of words, paragraphs and sentences for your essays.
You can read more about Not enough paragraphs at IDP site here.
| Question Type | Introduction Paragraph | Body Paragraph 1 | Body Paragraph 2 | Body Paragraph 3 | Conclusion Paragraph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement? | Yes | Yes (Reason for agree/disagree) | Yes (Another reason for agree/disagree) | Optional (Concession reason for agree/disagree) | Yes |
| Discuss both views and give your own opinion. | Yes | Yes (First view) | Yes (Second view) | Yes (Your opinion) | Yes |
| What are the advantages and disadvantages of this ? | Yes | Yes (Advantages) | Yes (Disadvantages) | No | Yes |
| Why is this so? Give reasons for this and solutions?. | Yes | Yes (Why this is so) | Yes (Reasons for this) | Yes (Solutions) | Yes |
With above simple paragraphing structure, you should have logical breaking up of your essay. Use linking words/phrases between and within paragraphs to provide clear progression and flow of your ideas. We will cover the linking words in detail and cohesion section.
Read the question carefully
Also before starting your essay, take time to read the question carefully and decide how will you cover all the part of the question in different paragraphs. Once you start writing, many times it's very easy to miss out a part of question asked and in that case, your essay will be marked as incomplete.