IELTS writing academic writing task 2, tips and strategies Part 2. And now we are going to discuss step 1, creating an outline. In your outline you can include the following things you see on the slide. So we have these statement body paragraph 1, body paragraphs 2, and 3, and also supporting details for each point. As you remember, our thesis statement explains the reader what type of essay you have. In our academic writing task 2 we have five different types of essays. So, for example, if you have agree or disagree or problems and solutions type of essay, so you can write down in your outline problems and solutions, or agree or disagree. So this will help you to stay focused and do not forget about what type of essay you're writing. So body paragraph 1 or main idea, it's our topic sentence. Our topic sentence includes the reason you are going to give. So make sure you begin every body paragraph with a specific reason for your problem, for example, or for your agree or disagree and also supporting details. These are our examples. It doesn't have to be three. Maybe you can have only one supporting detail or two or if you feel like including more, so you can have three supporting details. And as you see, I have three main ideas. But maybe sometimes your body paragraphs are bigger. I mean longer so you can have only two body paragraph, so it depends on what kind of task you have and how you write your essay. But you can write three or two body paragraphs if you wish. So this is our outline, and it is important to have our outline, because this will help you to write faster. And you will not be wasting your time thinking too much what you write. So make sure you spend some time on creating your outline. And now I'm going to discuss our introduction. Introduction is very challenging for a lot of students, and I'm going to explain how to write your introduction in the easier way. So your introduction part has to contain three things in order to attain a good score and complete one of the requirements of the task 2. First of all, you need to describe the topic, or, if it's too difficult, you can just paraphrase your prompt by replacing a couple of words with synonyms and tell the reader what the essay is about. The second thing you have to do is writing your thesis statement. As you remember, we discuss five different types of essays, and your thesis statement basically states what type of essay you have, and you have to make sure you include it in your introduction. So, for example, if you have, agree or disagree essay, you have to write in your introduction, I strongly agree, or I strongly disagree and so on. And the last part, we have its main ideas. The final thing that you have to do in your introduction is writing specific reasons for your thesis statement. You need to tell the reader what you agree or disagree about by providing specific reasons, that you will explain in your body paragraphs later. So remember your introduction has to have three things. Describing the topic, writing thesis statement, and mentioning three specific reasons or maybe two, you are going to discuss later in your body paragraphs. And here we have a complete introduction for our academic writing task 2. But first, let's take a look at our prompt and then I'm going to read our introduction. The prime states following, in some parts of the world the rate of divorce has increased dramatically over the past few decades. And the IELTS exam asks the following as well, explain some possible reasons for this problem and suggest some solutions? And let's take a look at our introduction now. The divorce rate is increasing in many places, I believe that the breakdown of the extended family and the stresses of work are the major causes of the situation. Fortunately, although these issues have led to rise in the divorce rate, that are ways we can solve this problem. So this is our complete introduction, and as you see we have 50 words. And if you remember in our previous slide, we have our main ideas. We mentioned what kind of essay we have, and also we described our topic. So that's what we needed to do in our introduction. In this slide, we have a brief explanation about previous introduction that I read to you, and here we have three things that I mentioned earlier we needed to do. For example, the first one describing the topic was the divorce rate is increasing in many places. Our thesis statement was causes and solutions, so I mentioned earlier about causes and solutions. And main ideas it's a breakdown of extended family and the stresses of work. So remember, if you really want to attain a higher score, you have to make sure you did all three things in your introduction. And now we're going to discuss our step 2, how to write your body paragraphs. Once you have written your thesis statement and showing the reader how you plan to develop your essay, you have the basis for writing your body paragraph. You should use the main ideas and supporting details from your previous outline that we discussed earlier, to write the sentences for each paragraph. Of course, you must try to use your correct grammar, spelling, and show variety in your vocabulary and sentence types. And there's some tips that you should try to keep in mind. And first of all, try to use all four types of sentences, such as simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, and compound complex sentences. Also do not use academic words if you do not know how to use them in the sentence. So try to be accurate when you're using your words, and if you're not sure if it's correct, just avoid it and keep it very simple. And always ask yourself in what tense you're writing your essay. If you're writing in the past tense, make sure everything is in the past. And if you're writing in the present tense, make sure everything is in present. So try to be consistent and keep in mind these important points. And here we have an example of the body paragraph our complete body paragraph, actually, and as you see I have my outline and my body paragraph. So let's go ahead and read it with what we have. So as you see, our outline begins with a breakdown of the extended family, and I have best my notes family help with childcare, past family help with expenses. Now people don't have the support, and I turned these notes into my body paragraph. So let's see what we have. In my opinion, the biggest cause for divorce is a breakdown of the extended family. In the past, a family was made up of parents, grandparents, children, and other relatives. This meant that there was always somebody available to help with childcare. It also meant that expenses could be shared in times of financial difficulty. These days people do not have this kind of support from their families, and this puts more stress on marriage. So, as you see I have 77 words in one body paragraph. And, of course your body paragraph can be written a little bit differently. And this is just an example for you to see how you can turn your notes into a body paragraph. And also keep in mind it's a good idea to use transitions. So I did not add marching here, but try to use as many transitions as possible. It will really help to link the sentences we have, and that's all we have guys for our body paragraph.
