Cambridge B2 First (FCE) - How to Write an Article

hey hey come closer no closer do you want to know how to write amazing articles in b2 first awesome just keep watching hello and welcome to teacher phil where i help people like you pass their cambridge exams make sure you subscribe to the channel and like the video and also read the full article on my website all the links are in the description box below and let's get started as you might know essays are the only mandatory writing task in b2 first which means that articles are a choice instead of articles you can choose to write an email or letter a report a review or if you are taking b to first for schools a story somewhere up here you should find the playlist for all my other videos about the other types of texts every article needs to be between 140 to 190 words long just like any other text in v2 first and with all of that basic information out of the way let's put articles in the context of the fce exam an article in b2 first is usually written for a magazine or website which means we can assume that the readers of our article are interested in the topic with all that being said we still have to make sure that our article is as interesting and engaging as possible also you might have to comment on the topic or give your opinion as you can see here article tasks are not very different from the other possible tasks in the writing exam we get some specific information about the topic about the specific points we need to include as well as the readers of our text the main points that you should always keep in mind when writing an article are firstly stick to the point don't start to write about something that has nothing to do with the topic of the article make sure that everything you include answers some of the questions in the task secondly make sure you make your article as interesting and engaging as possible to do this we can include specific language that we are going to talk about later in this video thirdly make sure that your article is structured well effective text organization is one of the key marking criteria in b2 first that means you should make sure that you use paragraphs and a variety of linking expressions that connect your ideas and make it easier for the reader to follow your thoughts and last but not least always make sure that you comment or give your opinion on something if the task asks for it so now from here let's go through a specific example from beginning to end with task analysis and after that we're going to look at each individual part of a good article the first step to a successful article is always a good task analysis here we can find out everything we need to include in our task that means the topic specific topic points as well as the reader of our text so first of all we have to ask ourselves what is the topic of the article knowing the topic helps us choose the right vocabulary and important and interesting expressions that we might include in our text in our example task the topic is the most useful thing i have ever learned so here you can immediately brainstorm some ideas and think about certain things that you have learned in your life that have been very useful to you and have benefited you in some way next we need to go into a little bit more detail with our second question what exactly do i have to include in my text we can look for the specific topic points that we need to address in every writing task in b2 first you usually find two or three topic points for your article and this task is no different first of all we have to name the most useful thing that we've ever learned we also need to address the other two questions who did you learn it from and why is it useful finding out about the different specific topic points also helps us structure our article in a logical and interesting way here we have three topic points so we have different options we could choose to have three topic paragraphs later on or we could also say to include the first topic point in the introduction later on in this video i will show you exactly which choice i've made and how we can solve this problem and last but not least we always need to find out who's going to read our text this helps us determine the most appropriate register for our text as i've mentioned before articles are always written for a magazine or website with the readers already being interested in what we have to say as the people are not our best friends but also not anybody who we need to show a ton of respect to we can use neutral to informal language in our article if you are not really sure what the differences are between formal neutral and informal language i have created a video for you that you can check out somewhere up here that deals specifically with that question looking at our example task again we can see that this one is not different from other article tasks we write for an english language website and in the task itself we can see that it's not very formal but there are also not many informal features for example there are no contractions and no colloquial expressions so this can also help you determine the correct register for your text okay now that we know what the topic of our article is what exactly we need to include and what the most appropriate style is we can now look at how we can structure our article in the best possible way structuring an article is actually quite easy because every single article follows the same basic ideas we always start with a title and introduction to engage the reader and to make it clear from the beginning what we want to talk about following this we have our topic paragraphs here we address the main points in the task remember in our article it was about what we learned who we learned it from and why it was useful for us and last but not least we always finish our article with a nice closing paragraph or conclusion okay so now with all that being said it is time for us to look at each of these parts individually and i'm going to explain them to you in as much detail as possible so you know exactly what you have to do and you will feel more confident with article writing without any problems as i said just a moment ago every good article starts with a title and an introduction first of all please don't get stressed about the title it doesn't have to be anything spectacular or overly creative but make sure that you include one it is one of the little requirements in b2 first and we shouldn't forget about it there are different ways in which you can start your article but i always like asking a rhetorical question rhetorical questions help us engage the reader from the beginning and peak their interest because they will start thinking about the topic in their own minds and they want to know what you think about it or what you have to say so here you can see an example introduction for our example task first of all there's a title once again it is nothing special i simply took the topic of the article and used it as the title secondly i immediately ask a question as i mentioned just a moment ago this is there to engage the reader from the beginning and to pique their interest i then go into the topic and refer the topic back to myself and i mention some of the other topic points that we are going to address in our article you can also notice that i didn't give away all the information in the introduction i want to keep the reader guessing because once again that creates more excitement and interest and the reader wants to keep going the second big part of every great article are the topic paragraphs the topic paragraphs include the main information of your text so they should be the longest parts and include most of your word count here you address the main topic points in the task which means that you should get straight to the point stick to the topic and support your ideas with reasons and examples or anything that might be useful to get your ideas across also remember to use appropriate language in our case we need to use neutral to informal language so make sure that you don't use too many formal expressions that could make the article a little bit boring and uninteresting for the reader so here you can see two example paragraphs that i wrote to address the other two main topic points in the red boxes you can see how i answered the questions with my english teacher being the person who i learned it from and i became an english teacher myself so learning english was extremely useful for me you can also see that i've supported my arguments and my ideas with lots of examples and other useful information and last but not least all the expressions in bold are really good expressions for this kind of article they are interesting informal ideas that can help you take your article to the next level the third and last main part in every good article is a final paragraph or conclusion in this last paragraph we want to do two things we want to summarize our article and we want to refer back and address the reader one last time because as i said at the beginning our article should be interesting and engaging from start to finish so here in my example conclusion you can see that i've only written two sentences the first sentence is the summary of the article and of the main ideas that we discussed in the topic paragraphs the final sentence as it says here i hope my experience inspires others this way i address the reader one more time and i end my article in an interesting way i hope you found the example useful remember that the structure always stays the same no matter what the topic or the specific topic points are thank you for watching once again make sure you check out the full article on teacherfield.com you can also find out more about the different services that i offer and you can get your free b2 first writing cheat sheet on my website as well all the links and much more are in the description box below and i'll see you next time

Channel: Teacher Phill

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Length: 13min 55sec (835 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 10 2021