IELTS / TOEFL Essay: Body Paragraph Development

everybody welcome to write to the top I'm Adam in today's video I have two purposes two things that I want to make very very clear to you about the essay about the IELTS or TOEFL essay okay we're going to look specifically at the IELTS in terms of the scoring but it applies to both types of essays so the IELTS IELTS or TOEFL essay we're looking at body paragraph development now this is a very very important aspect of the essay the body paragraph and what a lot of people do incorrectly or insufficiently they don't do it enough is develop their ideas develop their arguments and this is going to cost you a lot of points okay so I'm gonna look specifically at the IELTS in terms of the scoring but keep in mind that this applies equally to the TOEFL okay so everybody when they come to the writing section they're thinking grammar and they're thinking vocabulary I need to use big words and I even need to use big fancy sentence says that I'll get a high score that's not how it works there are four scoring criteria to the IELTS scoring TOEFL has its own algorithm but again still basic supply you still need to have a very well-developed essay and you still have to have the grammar and the vocab but a lot of people don't pay enough attention to these two aspects the task response and the cohesion and coherence essentially keep in mind they're not just testing your language skills in terms of the mechanics words of a cat and grammar they're also testing your ability to communicate content they built your ability to make an idea clear so what are you saying how are you saying it the content and the delivery they are the ideas you're using the argument you're using the support you're giving to that argument and how are you putting it all together how are you organizing so the main things are going to be scored on in terms of the essay task one has a little bit different but more or less the same for the content for your task response core first thing they want to know did you answer the question right did you address the task and every part of the task if you didn't you can have perfect vocabulary you can have perfect grammar but if you didn't answer the question you're still getting a very low score okay that's one did you give reasons did you just throw in ideas or did you actually express quality reasons for your argument for your position if that's what you're asked for if you're asked for an opinion you have to make sure it's very clear to the reader why you have that opinion otherwise it's meaningless it's just you just said something to say something right doesn't really add up too much expand and elaborates this is where a lot of people lose points they printed an idea and then they go on to the next idea they didn't make it a complete idea they didn't expand on it they didn't give more details they didn't make it clear to me why you provided this reason or this idea or this cause if you're looking at cause solution thing etc support did you make it very clear with a real-life situation with an example with an explanation of why this actually supports your idea okay so they let you expand and then you support with an example and all of these things together all of these things are your reasons your expansion your support do all of these connect somehow back to your thesis to the opinion that you expressed or the purpose that you expressed in the introduction in the thesis statement if you don't do all of these things you're losing points doesn't matter how good your grammar and vocab is then cohesion and coherence so this is all about the ideas this is all about how you put them all together right so they're looking at your essay is it organized do you have a logical flow from one idea to the next does it go from does it make sense as it goes along basically are the things that you're saying relevant basically every sentence must moving the the argument or must be moving the explanation forward to the conclusion right anything that you put in there that's redundant or repetitive or too many words or just has nothing to do with what came before or after is going to lose you points logical connections does what you say in one sentence followed to the next sentence or like for example do the two sentences have a logical connection if I read the second sentence does it make sense based on the previous sentence does the one after that makes sense on this one and etc every sentence must link to the next and how did you link the sentences how did you make use of cohesive devices conjunctions pronouns did you use complex sentences in such a way that connects ideas from one sentence to the next all of these things do matter because yes this is an English test but it's not an english-language test it's an English communication test communication includes grammar and vocab but it also includes content and delivery don't forget all this because 25% of your score 25% of your score vocabulary 25% grammar 25% all equal you can have a perfect one and a terrible other and you're getting a bad score so keep that in mind so my second purpose for this video again because a lot of people are losing points in the body paragraph because they're not concentrating enough on their content and delivery so I want to show you a very basic paragraph development there are different paragraphs you're going to need to use they have different functions depends of course on the task but we're going to look at more or less at at agree/disagree discuss both sides and say your opinion sort of essay and look at a very basic paragraph I'll make different videos for different paragraph styles for the body paragraph and I'm starting with body paragraph one okay I'm just all I'm gonna look at today body paragraph have a topic sentence it must be very clear to the reader what the aim or what the focus of this paragraph is remember one paragraph should have one central focus if you start going off to do all kinds of different ideas that aren't connected you're losing points because your cohesion and coherence doesn't actually work I need to know what you're going to talk about and it has to be very clear and I'm going to show you examples once you have your topic sentence get into your first point your first if you're just giving ideas give it a idea if you're making an argument give your first reason for choosing aside for choosing an opinion etc keep in mind that sentence 1 and sentence 2 can be combined into one sentence you can have your first sentence present the topic and the first point and I'll show you that example as well again expand elaborate I put them in capital letters because I want you to make sure you remember to do this basically what you're doing is you're you're making it clear to the reader why did you choose at this point as opposed to another point why do you think this idea helps support your thesis how does this argument work to support your thesis to convince me the reader that you're making a good argument okay how does it help your argument your argument your case whatever the purpose of the essay is does it need further explanation is what you said not entirely complete you need a little bit more if it does give a little bit more okay make sure that your idea is complete and I'm gonna summarize all this stuff after we should look at the example give an example or give me some sort of concrete support to make me believe that your idea is a good one that your argument is a strong one okay and again at the end make sure you tie it back to the actual thesis of the essay how does how do all of these ideas help support your thesis of the essay and you or you can prepare for the next paragraph if you're gonna keep building on the same sort of train of thought are the same idea prepare me for the next paragraph okay now here I put 3.5 which is basically here if you're going to give me a topic sentence I say there are two main ideas for this argument first give it explain it and then second give the second one explain it and then give me an example just for the second one you you can try to give an example for everything but then you're gonna have a very long essay and you might not have time one example for one of the ideas is usually enough just to show to make it believable or convincing anyway okay so again very basic paragraph for a body paragraph so let's look some examples so the task is teacher should give homework or not some people think it's yes some people think it's a waste of the kids time and they should have more free time discuss both views give your opinion now first of all once you've given your opinion means you you've chosen one side or not chosen one side when you have discuss but with views and give your opinion you don't have to choose one of them you can include a third opinion but again not recommended because it's a different sort of support that you have to give to it choose one of the sides and then in your first body paragraph and I see people doing this a lot they'll start with the other side and then try to do this their side in the second start with the side you support make sure that you get your best ideas into your first body paragraph make your case strong in the second body paragraph which will probably be a little bit shorter then you can look at the other side a little bit and bring it back to your site so topic sentence so I support more homework as an example there are several reasons homework is helpful to students very basic topic sentence this paragraph is going to talk about the reasons it's helpful good okay so now let's look at the next one the main argument for more homework so this word for where is it there it is this word for there's your topic I'm looking at the support side of homework my opinion is that I'm for homework I'm gonna be supporting it in this paragraph so there's your topic sentence part and then is that now I'm gonna go straight into my first argument students reinforce the lessons learned in class so I'm for it here's my first reason why or here's my main reason why I combined the two into one next sentence I'll start elaborating right away now a lot of people like to begin with to begin a body paragraph one to begin and it's so common that it's basically cliche graders or examiner's see this all the time if you can't if you're if you need to do it do it there's nothing wrong with it it's just not the best beginning because it's done so much to begin homework benefits so there's my topic ok so again I'm looking at the positive of the positive side of homework but give them a chance to review the class materials one point and keep up with the lessons the second point and then I'll explain both of these aspects so I'm gonna continue my paragraph with this second the second sample here the main argument for homework now I'm gonna elaborate the main argument for homework dot this is especially true during primary to secondary schooling so now I'm giving you a specific situation where the homework is actually very valuable and why because students are bombarded with information just information information information coming in their to their heads like like bombs from a airplane right and they have to make sense they have to organize all this information in their minds take home assignments basically homework that provides assignments provide them the opportunity to sort through the material basically organize it in their minds at their own pace they can do it slowly they can do it fast or to get extra help if they need to do more like get a tutor that's fine so my main reasoning for my my main support or explanation for my first reason I'm gonna go to an example now another point another problem that people sometimes have or another way to lose points is a lot of people give an example here for something that they mentioned up here the example will should connect to the last thing you said at least the previous sentence once you go if you're gonna talk about giving an example here about the type of information that's a problem because the reader already moved on forgot about that information the reader is now thinking about own pace or extra help so my example is going to be about this extra help because that's the last thing I said that's the clearest connection that I can support with the example so for instance a student who is weak in mathematics may need assistance from his parents or a tutor to clarify textbook examples so by you having homework this student has an opportunity to get extra help okay and then you have your tying your tying it all back to the main thesis ultimately so in the end this student the one who got a tutor or got extra help from his parents will have greater academic success which is why I support more homework okay for his efforts and then next paragraph and the whole paragraph is about 106 words don't worry too much about the numbers okay so now in the next paragraph I'm gonna look at the other side because remember you have to discuss both views so you have to look at this side that's against homework on the other hand homework deprives children of free time to explore other interests I'm going to talk about why homework is a bad thing I'm gonna do it very briefly one maybe two sentences and then I'm gonna latch on some point in that argument and bring it back to supporting homework because that's my thesis that homework is a good thing and then conclusion etc okay don't toss in ideas I've seen a lot of body paragraphs that have four or five different ideas in there like every sentence that the writer is trying to give some idea thinking that this makes it more convincing more impressive it doesn't one paragraph one central idea developed storing in lots of ideas doesn't actually help your argument because the whole thing doesn't work together there's no cohesion right and if there's no cohesion there's very little coherence it's very hard to understand what you're trying to say what your main point is don't assume anything don't assume that your reader can make the grammatical Corrections for you or can guess the word you're trying to say because you use the wrong one or something like that what that the reader can make the logical connections for you make everything crystal clear to the reader so the reader could just read right through quickly and understand everything you're trying to say example simply name a thing place I I see a lot of people say for example or Facebook is a very good example of this and then they go on to the next thing how is Facebook a good example what about Facebook makes it a good example don't just throw in a word a think that you've given an example and especially with names like country names or website names or celebrity names etc just putting in a name means nothing if you don't connect it to the idea you're trying to support and ideally don't end your paragraph with an example okay oh sorry I forgot don't leave an idea until it is crystal clear clear complete all the ideas and don't end the paragraph on an example make sure that you connected back to the general thesis of the essay okay so now a couple more examples and then we're done here's a an essay that was sent to me for assessment okay I cleaned up I fixed all the grammar and all the vocab so there's no language issues I want you to read this and tell me what is along with it in terms of task response and cohesion and coherence now if you want to see the original essay and all the edits and the rewrites that I did for it you can find that on my site there's a link in the YouTube description box very quickly so we're talking about some people some people say that private schools should not be allowed to exist why do people believe this what is your opinion you have a statement you have two questions various points of view on private education exist in our society okay a little bit general but we're at least in the right range of the topic one side suggests banning these types of schools well you didn't actually mention any school private education could be a private tutor who comes to your house it doesn't have to be a school so wrong word here or wrong structure plus you're starting with two very simple sentences not only is such an idea wrong but in my opinion the numbers of these private educational institutions should be increased okay so you obviously disagree with that but the first question is why do people believe this now I can see that you're going to talk about it but you didn't make this part of the purpose of the essay you've already lost points for task response maybe you don't really understand the function of an introduction okay and what is your opinion so not only is such an idea wrong but the numbers of these so as soon as you say wrong that means you've given an opinion you don't need this second X expression this is now redundant your cohesion and coherence score is going down a little bit now the main thing I wanted to look at is the body paragraph at least two reasons which are given by a significant number of proponents to eliminating private schools can be presented well we already know that there's that people are against the private schools this whole sentence is a lot of words trying to impress the examiner with language but saying actually nothing except two reasons I'm give you two reasons right everything else unnecessary firstly many people think private education contributes to social inequality because it gives better opportunities to those who are wealthy good point let's see if you elaborated this looks like a reasonable argument therefore people choose to support this idea well yeah that's obvious they think it's a good argument that's why they have it because it's they think it's a good argument this sentence doesn't actually say anything about anything and you left this idea but the wealthy and the social inequality just hanging there how does it create social inequality why do the wealthy have an advantage all this needs to be explained to the reader secondly so he left that idea he went on to the next one numerous conspiracy conspiracy theories involving secret societies made up of independent school graduates exist very long sentence secondly a lot of people think that there are secret societies of a certain schools of independent schools of private schools those speculations make people afraid of being outplayed by pre-made groups of competitors and their professional activities or businesses so people are worried that private school alumni have secret societies that work together in business and keep out non-members from competing since this matters a lot they are forced to undertake measures what kind of measures are they going to undertake now who are you talking about here as they the secret societies or the people who are not in the secret societies and should not be allowed so again some good ideas here but this person concentrated too much on trying to put in nice words and trying to put in nice grammatical structures meanwhile losing points for task response and cohesion and coherence here's the rewrite I rewrote this it's longer but did I mention the number here yeah 145 and this is 175 so it's a little bit longer but it has a lot more detail okay so I'm just gonna give you a couple examples two reasons are commonly given to support the elimination of private schools so I'm gonna give you two reasons to get rid of schools very straightforward the first is that these academies contribute to social inequality since they provide the rich better opportunities same idea he had I'm gonna elaborate this is because wealthy parents can afford to pay higher tuitions to schools that kind of that then afford higher quality teachers a wider variety of technological tools like computers and tablets and better facilities there's the reason which kids do better is because they have more things to work with more tools than non rich kids I explained it I elaborated I even gave some examples of the benefits that they have and I did the same thing for the the rest of it and that's why this is a more complete a better developed paragraph and then I went on to the second one without any irrelevant information okay so that's it concentrate on your body paragraphs in terms of development now a lot of you I think are still unfamiliar with the scoring of the the essays of the writing section go to the website of the test you're taking go to IELTS or G or ETS door dot or RG find the writing score descriptors make sure you read them make sure you understand them but also come back here and I'll give you more detailed explanation of the scoring for these things so you can start working on your writing and your scoring and you're basically improvement of your band score okay and that's it for today if you have any questions please ask me in the youtube comments section if you liked the video give me a like don't forget to subscribe to my channel and come back for more videos about vocab grammar writing tips etc okay see you again soon

Channel: Write to the Top

Views: 116,607

Keywords: IELTS, TOEFL, English writing, writing skills, language test, how to write an essay, essay writing, test tips, writing, English test, IELTS academic essay, how to write, test preparation, pass IELTS, IELTS high score, TOEFL high score, pass TOEFL, language skills, cohesion, coherence, IELTS high band, IELTS writing, TOEFL writing, IELTS essay, topic sentence, academic writing, body paragraph, English skills

Id: x6qcHApjQwc

Length: 24min 18sec (1458 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2019