Hello, everyone. Welcome to my channel. Today we are going to talk about how to describe
a process diagram. Let’s look at this diagram in Cambridge
IELTS 16 Test 2 Writing Task 1. So, the diagram is about how sugar is produced
from sugar cane. Let's first talk about the overview paragraph. It can be your second or your last paragraph. I always write the overview in my second paragraph. So, when writing an overview for a process
diagram, a mistake would be to say the process “begins with” and “ends with”. So What’s wrong with “begin with” and
“end with”? You guys see on page 133 of Cambridge IELTS
16, there is an answer written by a candidate who scored a 6. Let’s look at the overview he or she wrote. The process consists of seven steps of various
time length, starting by farming sugar canes and ending by dry sugar ready to use. Let’s ignore the grammatical mistakes here. Now, let’s look at the examiner’s comment. There is an overview presented in the first
paragraph which summarises the process into the farming stages and the drying stages. This summary could be more detailed, e.g.
farming, crushing, separating and drying stages. That is to say, only stating the first and
last stages is not enough. It’s better to include all the main stages
of the process in your overview. Another mistake when writing an overview for
a process diagram would be to use the term “man-made process”. For example, a lot of people write something
like this: the manufacturing of sugar from sugar cane is a man-made process. “Man-made” means the process was created
by people. However, there are few, if any, manufacturing
processes that were invented by non-humans. So there's just no need to mention 'man-made.' It's obvious. If it's a manufacturing process, it will be
man-made. So, we don’t do anything fancy here. We simply summarize the main stages. As the examiner said, the main stages are
farming, crushing, separating and drying, and of course we should start the overview
with the word “overall”. Overall, it is a linear process consisting
of four main stages: farming, crushing, separating and drying. That’s it. So, this is our second paragraph. Now, let’s move on to the third and fourth
paragraphs. In these two paragraphs, we describe the process
in detail. I call them Details Paragraph 1 and Details
Paragraph 2. Before we get started with the two details
paragraphs, I want to talk about why in the title, the singular “sugar cane” is used,
whereas in Step 1 and 3, the plural “sugar canes” is used. This is because the title is general and is
talking about the crop called sugar cane. So the crop is called sugar cane. That's why it's not plural. The same is true for any crop. For example, we say how flour is produced
from wheat (not wheats). How corn syrup is produced from corn (not
corns). Once you get into the production steps, it
is talking about physical plants and how they are handled physically. That's a completely different context. Each cane has to be harvested. So you are cutting multiple canes. Think of apples. When you harvest apples you pick apples. When you harvest sugar cane (singular) you
cut canes (plural). The canes are the items produced, just like
the apples. Now, let’s talk about how to group the information
in the diagram. As you can see, the first two steps take place
in the field. Therefore, we can group them in Details Paragraph
1. The remaining steps all take place in a factory,
so we can group them in Details Paragraph 2. When describing the first stage, we should
use the singular “sugar cane”. As I explained, you grow the crop sugar cane
(singular), and then you harvest the canes (plural). So, we now have: The first step is to grow
sugar cane and it takes about 12 to 18 months for it to mature. Now, Step 2: Harvesting. As you can see, there are two ways to harvest
the canes: using machines or human labor. We can actually make some comparisons between
the two methods.You see, this person is removing the leaves. That is to say, if the canes are harvested
by people, the leaves are removed first, and then the canes are chopped down. However, when using machines, the canes are
harvested directly without removing their leaves. So, now, we have: After it has fully grown,
it is harvested either manually or mechanically. The manual method involves farmers removing
the leaves first and then chopping the canes, while the mechanized method uses machines
to cut the canes directly. I already explained why here we need to use
the plural “canes”. So, this is our first details paragraph. Now let’s move on to Details Paragraph 2. The third step is crushing. This machine is called a mill. If you don’t know what it is, you can just
call it a machine. So now we have: The harvested canes are then
crushed in a mill to extract the juice. Both the juice and juice are correct but “the
juice” is better. The idea is the juice that is in the canes. All the juice in the canes is supposed to
be extracted. Even if all the juice is not extracted, it
is still the intention to extract it all, so "the juice" is better. Here I used “to” to show purpose. I will talk about some other ways to express
purpose later in this video. In the next step, the juice is purified using
a limestone filter. We can use a which-clause to connect it to
the previous clause. Which is later on purified using a limestone
filter. Now Step 5. So in Step 5, the purified juice is heated
in an evaporator and becomes a syrup. If you describe every single step as simple
like this, you may be unable to reach the required minimum word count of 150 words. We can make this sentence longer by adding
the purpose of this step. Ask yourself: why is the juice heated in an
evaporator? Of course this is in order to turn the juice
into a syrup. But how does the evaporator turn the juice
into a syrup? Well, it turns the juice into a syrup by removing
water from it. So, we can add “remove water” to our sentence. The purified juice is heated or is boiled
in an evaporator to remove water. The purpose of using an evaporator is to remove
water. You need to interpret this stage a little
to get the purpose. Earlier, I explained why here “the juice”
is better than “juice”. However, here it is actually wrong to use
“the water”. This is because not all the water in the syrup
is removed. the syrup still contains some water, so "the
water" would be inappropriate. I’m not done with Step 5 yet. We can also make this part more specific by
showing its purpose. What’s the purpose of removing water? The purpose is to concentrate the juice into
a syrup. Now, let’s replace “become” with “concentrate”
and we have: Next, the purified juice is boiled in an evaporator to remove water, which concentrates
it into a syrup. Here, both “a syrup” and “syrup” are
correct. But "a syrup" is definitely a better match
for this context. Normally we don't talk about "a syrup". But this is a production process with steps. One of those steps produces a substance that
is a specific type of syrup. Imagine a different production process that
produces two syrups, each one at a different stage. Those are two syrups. There might be a syrup produced at stage 3
and a different syrup produced at stage 6. You can't just call all of it "syrup". It's more specific than that. Now this sentence becomes more detailed and
therefore longer. I made this sentence longer only because I
had trouble reaching 150 words. I did not do this to make my sentence more
complex. So, by far we’ve used two ways to express
purpose: “to” and “which”: which concentrates it into a syrup. Another way to show purpose is to use “so
that”. For example, in Step 6, the syrup is put into
a centrifuge. The purpose is to separate the sugar crystals. So we can say the syrup is then poured into
a centrifuge so that the sugar crystals are separated. Or, we can use “to”. The syrup is then poured into a centrifuge
to separate the sugar crystals. Or, use “which” to modify the centrifuge. The syrup is then poured into a centrifuge
which separates the sugar crystals. I think this version is the best! It’s not that “which” and “so that”
are not good. It’s just that “to” suits this sentence
best. If you have trouble reaching 150 words, you
can explain a little about how the centrifuge works. According to Wikipedia, a centrifuge is a
device that separates various components of a fluid by spinning the fluid at high speed
within a container. We can include the information “high speed”
in our description. So now we have: The syrup is then poured into
a centrifuge where it is spun at high speed to separate the sugar crystals. Now let’s add the final step: drying and
cooling. Finally, the crystals are dried and cooled
and the end product is sugar. Now, the only thing missing is the introductory
paragraph. In this paragraph, we simply rewrite the diagram
description. Please keep in mind that the original is perfect. It just can’t be improved. The more you try to change it, the worse your
rewrite might become. Why not just use the title of the diagram
in our rewrite and change “produced” to “manufactured”? Then, we will also have a perfect diagram
description. The diagram displays how sugar is manufactured
from sugar cane. That’s the entire essay. Finally, Let’s look at what we’ve covered
in today’s video. We talked about two common mistakes when writing
an overview for a process diagram. 1. Only state the first and last stages. 2. Call a manufacturing process a man-made
process. Please don’t do this. We also talked about how to group information
into details paragraphs. Basically, we group those steps that have
something in common into one paragraph, like these two steps both take place in the field. Finally, we talked about showing purpose. This can make your sentences more detailed,
helping you reach the required minimum word count, and we can use "to", "which", or "so
that" to express purpose. So hoping that you guys like this video and
found it helpful. If you did make sure you give it a thumbs
up and subscribe to my channel down below. I will see you guys soon.
