A clear introduction with a strong position
is critical for a high writing score. In this video, we're going to look at how
to write the perfect introduction. In IELTS Writing Task 2, you'll have about
40 minutes to write a 250 word essay that could be on a variety of topics including
crime, environment, tourism, and many more. One of the key things that you'll need to
be able to do in your writing test is get off to a good start. This will save you time, make you feel less
stressed, and boost your scores. In this video, I will not show you a template
introduction which you can memorise and then regurgitate on test day. Template introductions create more problems
than they solve. I'm going to show you a structure. A structure will allow you to organise your
ideas, but be flexible with your language. A memorised template will not allow you to
be flexible on test day. Before we get to the structure, we need to
walk through some really important information. In this video we will: 1. Understand the myth of IELTS essay types. 2. Learn how to interpret the essay prompt properly. 3. Understand how to answer the question fully. 4. Understand the importance of planning by coming
up with two concise and distinct ideas. 5. Learn how to write the perfect intro paragraph
structure. So stick around until the end of the video
so that the perfect introduction makes perfect sense. First, let's look at the myth of the IELTS
essay type. A lot of students believe that there are different
IELTS essay types, there aren't. But there are a lot of common questions such
as 'What is your opinion?' Or 'What are the advantages and disadvantages?' These are not essay types and they should
not be thought of as such. They are questions. There is no such thing as an opinion essay
or an advantages and disadvantages essay. So please don't spend hours and hours studying
model essays and memorising template answers. Instead, I want you to focus on the essay
prompt. The essay prompt is what it's all about. So on test day, you need to do one thing and
one thing only, and that is answer the question that you are given on test day. Read the essay prompt carefully. Think about it deeply and respond to it fully. It's as simple as that. Let's take a look at the first essay prompt
on the topic of crime, which was reported to us from the actual exam. Imagine that you receive this prompt on test
day. Many people believe that having fixed punishments
for all crimes is a more efficient way to deal with crime. What is your opinion? On test day, you're going to need to read
and reread the essay prompt five or six times to make sure you've understood it fully. It doesn't take long. Right now, pause the video and read the essay
prompt five or six times. Or imagine you receive this prompt on test
day. Crime is increasing in some countries. Having more police officers is the best way
to reduce crime. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Or many criminals continue to commit crimes
after being released from prison? What is the cause of this? What are some possible solutions? Or in many societies teenage crime is increasing. The best way to deter teenagers from criminality
is to give them adult punishments. Are adult punishments the best solution? What is an alternative way to deal with this
issue? In this video, we're just going to look at
the first prompt. If you want to see plans and introductions
for the other three prompts, click the link in the description below. Now, you may have noticed something very interesting
about each of these prompts. Did you notice that they contain one or two
statements and one or two questions? It's important that you see this because if
you miss a statement or a question, it's going to bring your score down. According to IDP IELTS, not understanding
and answering the essay prompt fully, is the most common reason why people score poorly
in IELTS Writing Task Two. It's not grammar, it's not vocab and it's
not structure. It's misunderstanding and not fully answering
the question. If you look closely at the prompts, you'll
notice that each one has one or two statements, and one or two questions. So you might get a prompt that has one statement. And one question like this. Here is one statement. And one question. Or you might get a prompt that has two statements
and one question like this. Here are two statements and one question. Or you might get a prompt that has one statement
and two questions like this. Here is one statement and two questions. Or Finally, you might get a prompt that has
two statements and two questions. Here are two statements and two questions. Now, I was an examiner for five years, and
I've been teaching IELTS for over 10 years, you're never going to see anything outside
of one or two statements and one or two questions. But sometimes the questions will look a little
different like this. Why do you think this is? What can be done to address this issue? Or what are the consequences? What are some ways to prevent it? It doesn't matter what the prompt or question
says on test day. Do you know why? Because there's no such thing as an IELTS
essay type. And all you need to do is answer the question
or questions. Great. I'm glad we cleared that all up. Now, before we get into writing the introduction
with the perfect structure, we need to talk briefly about planning. You should never begin your writing test without
making a plan. Without making a plan, you'll almost certainly
go off topic. And this is going to bring your score down. Of the 40 plus minutes you have to write your
essay, you should give yourself two to three minutes to fully understand the question prompt,
including the statement or statements and question or questions and come up with your
ideas. For years teaching in live classes, I've always
made sure that my students took that planning time right to the end, and then started writing. If they had that full amount of time for planning,
the writing part was a lot easier, and they saved a lot of time. Okay, look at this prompt. We're gonna do some planning. It has one statement. And one question. Let's read the statement carefully. Many people believe that having fixed punishments
for all crimes is a more efficient way to deal with crime. What is your opinion? It's really talking about current inefficiencies
in the legal system, and how long it takes for criminals to be tried. The word efficient is key. And if you missed that, and wrote about something
else, your essay score would come down. And then it asks us, what is your opinion? We need to plan for two ideas for this essay. And I'll explain in a minute why. My two ideas for this essay would be this
idea one, yes, fixed punishments would make courts more efficient. Idea two, but they would not make serving
justice more effective. So these are my two ideas. This is what my essay is going to be about. These ideas will be mentioned in my introduction,
and my thesis statement. They will be the main ideas in my body paragraphs,
and they might even be echoed in my conclusion. If you want to know how to plan for those
other prompts we saw, then click on the link below for exclusive access to part two of
this video. Now again, I just want to point out the importance
of planning. We're spending a few minutes understanding
the prompt fully because we are going to respond to it fully. We need to make sure whether the prompt has
one or two statements and one or two questions because we need to incorporate all of these
parts into our essay. What's also really important here is to make
sure your ideas are one concise, and two distinct. What I mean by concise is that you need to
be able to express your ideas with a small number of words. And then what I mean by distinct is these
two ideas need to be clearly different from each other. They can't overlap or have similar ideas within
them. We all know English is not mathematics, we're
not dealing with clean numbers. We're dealing with messy ideas, but we need
to do our best to make sure our ideas are concise and distinct. Cool. Now, before we move on to the perfect introduction
structure, let's do a quick recap. So far, we've understood that there are no
essay types in IELTS Writing Task Two, we've understood that the essay prompt comprises
one or two statements, and one or two questions. We've understood the importance of answering
the question fully. And we've understood the importance of planning
by coming up with two concise and distinct ideas. Okay, let's learn the perfect essay introduction. Briefly, your essay will include an introductory
paragraph, body paragraph one, body paragraph two, maybe body paragraph three, and the conclusion
paragraph. So let me show you the overall introduction
structure, and then we'll write an introduction together. Your introduction will have three parts, not
necessarily three sentences, but three parts. 1. A background statement. 2. Rewrite the prompt statement or statements
and 3, a thesis statement (in this essay, I will). Okay, so here is essay prompt one. This is a single statement with a single question. Many people believe that having fixed punishments
for all crimes is a more efficient way to deal with crime. What is your opinion? And my plan is idea one; Yes, it would make
courts more efficient and idea two; but it would not make serving justice more effective. Here's a perfect introduction. A fair and efficient legal system is important
for everyone. Some people think that standardised punishments
would make the legal process faster. In this essay, I will argue that while fixed
punishments would certainly make courts more efficient, they would not be fair. Let's look closely at the different parts
of this introduction. There's the background statement. Here, I've rewritten the prompt statement. And here, I've written my thesis statement
outlining what my essay will be about, and my opinion. Let's look at the same essay prompt with a
higher scoring introduction that uses the same introduction structure. Punishing criminals is a lengthy legal process
that can sometimes take years because not all crimes are the same, and each crime must
be considered on a case by case basis. One way to make the legal process more efficient
would be to have fixed punishments for all crimes. In this essay, I will argue that standardising
punishments would certainly make the legal system more efficient. But it would also make it entirely unfair. You can see the background statement. This one's quite long and more complex. I've also rewritten the essay prompt statement
in my own words, and then I've written my thesis statement. You can see why this would score more highly
as it's more complex, but still very tight. Let's unpack what's going on in this introduction
by looking a little bit more closely at the background statement. The background statement is the first sentence
you're going to write in your essay. This is going to be a broad social or historical
context that you give based on the ideas you've come up with during your plan to answer the
question. We take this statement here and we understand
it fully. Then what we do is use this as a basis to
write a background statement about it. To put it in a larger context. Mine said a fair and efficient legal system
is important for everyone. And my second band 8+ background statement
said, punishing criminals is a lengthy legal process that can sometimes take years. Because not all crimes are the same. And each crime must be considered on a case
by case basis. The background statement, that first sentence
you write on test day needs to be a broad statement that sets the context for what you're
going to write about. Next, you need to rewrite the essay prompt
statement or statements in your own words. So we've written the background statement,
introducing the broad topic of the essay. Now we're going to take the statements from
the prompt and rewrite these ideas in our own words. Here's the original essay prompt statement. Many people believe that having fixed punishments
for all crimes is a more efficient way to deal with crime. And here's one way to rewrite it. Some people think that standardised punishments
would make the legal process faster. And here's another way to rewrite it. One way to make the legal process more efficient,
would be to have fixed punishments for all crimes. Notice that all I've done is say the same
thing as the essay prompt statement. But in different words, I have used some of
the exact same words, or I've used the same words, but changed the word order or form
of the words. But the key thing is that it captures the
same idea. It says the same thing, but in a different
way. One mistake that students make is that they
think they need to change every single word you don't, you can change some of the words,
you can use some of the same words, or you can change the sentence structure, it's fine. You just need to say the same thing in a different
way. So we've written our background statement,
and then we've rewritten the prompt in our own words. Now we're going to move on to the final and
most important part of the introduction, the thesis statement. This sentence is the most important sentence
of the whole essay. This is the one sentence that the examiner
is going to be looking very closely at. This is the sentence that reflects how well
you've planned your essay, and whether or not your ideas are concise and distinct. So remember what the essay prompt said. Many people believe that having fixed punishments
for all crimes is a more efficient way to deal with crime. What is your opinion? And my ideas were idea one; Yes, it would
make courts more efficient and idea two; but it would not make serving justice more effective. I now need to write my thesis statement. So I write; In this essay, I will argue that
while fixed punishments would certainly make courts more efficient, they would not be fair. Or; In this essay, I will argue that standardising
punishments would certainly make the legal system more efficient. But it would also make it entirely unfair. Getting this part right is crucial. If you get this part, right, your essay will
flow, and it will make perfect sense to you and the reader. But if you screw this up, then the rest of
your essay gets screwed up. I cannot stress that enough. What I'm effectively doing in my thesis statement
is telling the reader what I'm going to write about or argue for in my essay. I tell them explicitly, in this essay, I will
tell you about my idea one and my idea two, then I write my idea one as my paragraph one
and my idea two as my paragraph two. Let's conceptualise the introduction paragraph
as a kind of upside down pyramid. We're going to start broad, and then we're
going to narrow down. You can see that the introduction starts broad
and then becomes narrower. It starts with the broad background, social
or historical context statement, and then rewrites the essay prompt statement or statements. And then you clearly and efficiently write
your thesis statement where you tell the reader what you will write about in the rest of your
essay. So my perfect introduction becomes a background
statement, a rewritten statement or statements, and finally,
my thesis statement, or here's a slightly higher scoring one and you can see it's the
same structure. If you're still feeling confused, or you would
like to have it clarified a little bit more, click the link in the description below, and
see introduction paragraphs written for the other three prompts we saw before. In this video, we learned how to; 1. Understand the myth of IELTS essay types. 2. Interpret the essay prompt properly. 3. Understand how to answer the question fully. 4. Understand the importance of planning by coming
up with two concise and distinct ideas. 5. Learn how to write the perfect intro paragraph
structure. Let's quickly review what the perfect introduction
structure is. 1. A background statement to rewrite the prompt
statement or statements in your own words. And 3. The thesis statement. Thanks, everybody for watching. My name is Mark. And that's how you write the perfect introduction.
