📝 IELTS writing: a case of fixed CC 📝

Just in case you were wondering - CC stands for "Coherence and cohesion." In this post, I will share a piece of a paragraph written by a student with CC lacking and my rewrite.

🗒 Student's original writing:

"On the other hand, criminal behavior is often shaped by circumstances, which is the opinion I agree with. Poverty, hunger, and social injustice are the factors that can lead to criminal behavior. Being neither able to satisfy basic needs, such as food or clothes, nor having the access to more socially-accepted solutions, a person is likely to commit a crime."

The ideas are good, but each sentence seems to be disconnected.

🗒 My rewrite:
"On the other hand, criminal behavior is often shaped by circumstances, which is the opinion I agree with. People are more likely to commit a crime when they are unable to satisfy their basic needs, such as food or clothes, and when they don’t have access to more socially-accepted solutions for this problem. Among the most common factors leading to this are poverty, hunger, and social injustice."

How did I make the piece more cohesive?

Btw, this is not the only possible rewrite. Feel free to write your version in the comments. 📝

IELTS 18 is out! 🎉🎉🎉

Here are the essay topics:

Test 1
The most important aim of science should be to improve people's lives. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Test 2
Some university students want to learn about other subjects in addition to their main subjects. Others believe it is more important to give all their time and attention to studying for a qualification. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Test 3
In many countries around the world, rural people are moving to cities, so the population in the countryside is decreasing. Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?

Test 4
In many countries, people are now living longer than ever before. Some people say an ageing population creates problems for governments. Other people think there are benefits if society has more elderly people. To what extent do the advantages of having an ageing population outweigh the disadvantages?

I will be writing all of them shortly. Which one should I start with? Which one would you start with? Which one or ones seem challenging?

🦩 IELTS writing: a case of fixed CC 🦩

🗒 Topic: "Some people say that the best way to teach children to behave well is to punish them. Others argue that rewarding and praising children is a better way to teach them the difference between right and wrong. Discuss both views and give your own opinion."

🗒 Here is the student's paragraph arguing the first view.

"On the one hand, it could be argued that punishment is the most effective instrument to make children acquire social norms. Knowing that misbehavior is punished, children are likely to follow the rules set by adults. When experienced on a regular basis, unpleasant emotions, associated with punishment, such as fear and guilt, will encourage children to avoid them in the future. Punishment is therefore believed by some people to have a much more forceful effect than any other method."

In the third sentence, "negative emotions" come out of the blue, which means cohesion is lacking. Why don't we connect the emotions to the punishment more directly?

🗒 My re-write:

"On the one hand, it could be argued that punishment is the most effective instrument to make children acquire social norms. When children are punished, they experience negative emotions, such as fear and guilt. In order to avoid these unpleasant emotions in the future, children follow the rules set by adults and avoid misbehaving. Punishment is therefore believed by some people to have a much more forceful effect than any other method."

The paragraph now has a smoother flow.

🗒 And here is a paragraph from my essay:

"On the one hand, it could be argued that punishment is the best behavior modification technique as it teaches children out of undesirable behavior most effectively and quickly. It does so because when children are punished for unacceptable actions, they indelibly connect these to extremely unpleasant emotions. This deters them from repeating the actions because avoiding negative consequences or feelings is an inherent drive all people have. Punishment is thus believed by some people to have a much stronger effect on behavior than any other technique."

My original paragraph is more complex than the student's paragraph or than my rewrite, but I think it's important to move from simplicity to complexity one step at a time rather than trying to write something fancy and complex immediately (it won't work anyway).

Btw, did you know that I write almost all the IELTS tasks I give my students? 😜

📝 Not only is inversion a high-level structure, but it is also the root of all evil. 📝

Just kidding. What is the root of all evil is the pursuit of life hacks. One popular IELTS writing (and speaking) life hack seems to be "Use inversion. More inversion. And then some. It's such a high level structure that the examiners will go "wow" and immediately give you band score 10."

Admittedly, it is a high-level grammar structure. But grammar is not just grammar. It has meaning. Inversion is an emphatic structure, which is used to express very strong emotions, like shock or outrage. Because of this meaning, this structure is very rare and is even more so in IELTS essays.

Don't use inversion in sentences that don't require emphasis, like: "Not only do I like apples, but I also like pears," or "Not only do many people people eat fast food nowadays, but they also drink cola," or "Not only is there Academic IELTS, but there is also General Training IELTS."

If you use inversion in sentences that don't need emphasis you are not using it entirely accurately anyway. Because there are two components to accuracy: form and meaning. For complete accuracy you need to get both right.

Here are two examples of sentences in which inversion is appropriate:

1️⃣ Say, someone stole my IELTS essay. I could say: Not only did she steal my IELTS essay and published it as her own, but she also blocked me on social media when I confronted her about that.

2️⃣ Imagine I got a nasty subscriber who I decided to ban from my community on VK. I could say: Not only did he write toxic comments on my posts, but he also started assaulting other subscribers.

In these examples, my outrage that is totally justified. And so is the use of inversion.

Feel free to share your outrage in the comments (but use inversion wisely). 📝

🍒 IELTS Writing: Both views essays - can you agree with both opinions? 🍒

When it comes to essays with this instruction "Discuss both this views and give your own opinion," my strong recommendation is to simply side with one of the given views. But a student asked me recently, "What to do if both positions are sensible and provide a good point of view? Why can't I agree with both of them if I consider them mutually effective?"

There is a lot to unpack here.

First, in all IELTS essay topics, both positions are always sensible - if one position was clearly better than the other, there would be no point in asking.

Second, both positions can be mutually effective, but they can also be mutually exclusive. Let's take a look at some examples.

1️⃣ "Some people believe that professionals, such as doctors and engineers, should be required to work in the country where they did their training. Others believe they should be free to work in another country if they wish. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion."

People cannot be required to work and free to work at the same time. How can you agree with both these views? This doesn't make sense. The position is not clear.

2️⃣ "Some people say that the best way to teach children to behave well is to punish them. Others argue that rewarding and praising children is a better way to teach them the difference between right and wrong. Discuss both views and give your own opinion."

Two behavior modification techniques cannot be the best and better at the same time. They can co-exist and be effective, but they cannot both be the best.

3️⃣ "Some people believe that it is the responsibility of individuals to take care of their own health and diet. Others, however, believe that governments should make sure that their citizens have a healthy diet. Discuss both views and give your opinion."

Can an individual and the government take care of the individual's health at the same time? Yes, this makes sense.

The overall answer to all the "can I do this, can I do that" questions is: You can do anything you want in IELTS essays as long as you address the prompt appropriately, express the position clearly, explore the topic in depth and develop ideas fully.

🦉 IELTS writing: Is it ok to start a sentence with "and" or "but"? 🦉

You might have heard that you mustn't start your sentences with "and" or "but."

And for good reason.

But it's not that simple.

The good reason is that starting your sentences with these conjunctions gives your writing an informal and emphatic feel. And it's not the feel you want your IELTS writing to give off, right? So, ideally, do follow this advice when you can. But, at the same time, don't become too obsessed. IELTS is not about strict, rigid, prenoscriptive rules. IELTS is about the big picture. If everything else is absolutely impeccable, one sentence starting with one of these conjunctions shouldn't be a problem.

And did you know that minor errors and lapses are OK even at band 9?

So, my advice would be: Rather than chasing one-size-fits-all answers to questions like this, focus on the big picture.

But if you respectfully disagree, do share in the comments.

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- The panoply of types
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- Assessment criteria (new version, May 2023)
- Sample answers for different scores (including answers written by me)

🌻 Session 2: Writing Task 2
- Garden-variety essay questions
- The structure of any essay
- Understanding and developing the topic
- Assessment criteria (new version, May 2023)
- Common mistakes
- Sample answers for different scores (including answers written by me)

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Giving students IELTS model answers is certainly a great idea, but you can't just hand them the answers and say, "Look. These are good. Do the same thing." You need to make sure the model answers help your student develop their skills. In this session, I'll share a whole host of meaningful activities you can do with model answers. Each activity is aimed at a certain goal and will help you work on all four assessment criteria. All the activities are based on answers written by me.

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🦋 The awesomeness we do in class 🦋

Sometimes I think, "If only people knew what kinds of awesome things we do in writing classes." But then I think, "Wait, you have your blogs. You can share."

Today, I want to share some "before-after" bits of text from my "Write for Real: Blogging in English" class.

We were trying our hand at stylistic devices using Evgenia Karabatova's first draft.

1⃣

Before: My typical day is more or less the same flurry of commotion as for any other teacher slash blogger. I conduct lessons, check homework, write posts, work out, attend other lessons/workshops/webinars; you name it! However, unlike those multitaskers who somehow manage to tick every box on the list, I always have something in between.

After: My typical day is more or less the same flurry of commotion as for any other teacher slash blogger. I conduct lessons, check homework, write posts, work out, attend other lessons/workshops/webinars; you name it! However, unlike those multitaskers who somehow manage to check all the 467 boxes on their to-do list, I always have something in between.

2⃣

Before: That something is kids. Every bullet point of my agenda is broken by “feed the kids,” “walk the kids,” “wash the kids,” and “do a million other things with kids.”

After: That something is kids. Every bullet point of my agenda is broken by a tiny voice in my head commanding to “feed the kids,” “walk the kids,” “wash the kids,” and “do a million other things with kids.”

3⃣

Before: I could have done so much more with my life if I hadn’t had kids. I would have written a book I had been putting off for a decade. I would have devised a course of my own and launched a marathon. I would have set up a gazillion of new projects. At the very least, I would have felt marginally less frazzled.

After: I could have done so much more with my life but I had kids. I would have written a book I had been putting off for a decade but I had kids. I would have devised a course of my own and launched a marathon but I had kids. I would have set up a gazillion of new projects but I had kids. At the very least, I would have felt marginally less frazzled if I hadn’t had kids.

🦋 See the final version of Evgenia's post here:
https://www.tumblr.com/642stories/722251405523648512/story-67-is-about-all-the-would-have-beens-in-my?source=share

🦋 The awesomeness we do in my Creative Writing Club 🦋

Repetitions might not be a good idea in some kinds of writing, but they are definitely a great idea in creative writing.

So, today, after we studied some stylistic devices based on repetitions, I asked the participants to put them to good use while writing an answer to this prompt: Write an ad for an item that you have to sell but deep down don’t want to part with.

Just look at some of the answers:

🦋 By Svitlana Demchenko:
The dress is in a perfect condition - looks just the way it did on the day of my wedding. It has a long train and the bodice is decorated with expensive lace and pearls, so you can be sure that you'll turn all the heads - like I did on the day of my wedding. I hope it will bring you good luck and happiness in your marriage - like I hoped on the day of my wedding.

🦋 By Taisiya Voloshina:
An ikea shark for sale. A perfect toy for your children - a bit scary but not very much. You can take it with you on holiday - a bit cumbersome but manageable. It can serve as a pillow - a bit too high but who needs to sleep much these days anyway?

🦋 By Anna Skopina:
What a great box of colored pencils it is! It is great indeed - 120 colors, just imagine! When you draw with them, it’s like having a whole rainbow at your fingertips. When you draw with them, there are no limits to your choices. When you draw with them, it’s a pure delight. I have to part with them now, but you can have them!

🦋 By Eugenia:
To have or not have? Asks any parent when their child comes with a request for a kitty. Kitties for sale. And what nice kitties we have! They will make your eyes water with love for them (and if you are unlucky with allergic tears as well). They make you happy but not too happy. Willing to be active but not too active. Ask for attention but not too much. A perfect pet!

Pure awesomeness, isn't it? 🩷

📝 So your turn to write something awesome in the comments:
1. If you are well-versed in stylistic devices, write the ones you've spotted (and I mean the fancy names).
2. If your creative juices are flowing, write your answer to the prompt!

🐞 Even more awesomeness from my Creative Writing Club 🐞

Today, we were writing haikus (Japanese poetry).

After we learned from the great poets of the past, I gave the participants the first line and they had to continue it. Just look at some results. ❤️

🐞 By Tatyana Leonova
A dead fly
Is lying on my bed
But so are roses (that you bring)

🐞 By Daria Mironova
A dead fly
in my soup
the sorrow of this world

🐞 By Anna Skopina
A quiet swallow
Far in the sky
As far as you

🐞 By Anastasia Shubina
A quiet swallow
Sad and blue
His love is lost

🐞 By Svitlana Demchenko
a quiet swallow
a loud seagull
protecting their nests

What do you think? Did we capture the spirit of this unique type of poetry?

📝 Give it a shot too. Write a haiku in the comments starting with either A dead fly or A quiet swallow.

"Former/latter" for sequences of more than two items?

It's one of those things in English - it's kind of "yes," but mostly "no."

In their classical use, "the former/ the latter" refer to the first and the last of the two mentioned items in a sentence. For example, "I teach IELTS writing and creative writing. The latter is my favorite type of writing." (The latter = creative writing.)

However, you might see examples in which these words are used with sequences of items greater than two in number. For example, "I teach IELTS writing, C2 Proficiency writing, and creative writing. The latter is my favorite type of writing." (The latter = creative writing.)

Still, most style guides recommend (and so do I) sticking to the classical use and avoiding using "former/latter" for groups of more than two items.

What should you use with sequences of three or more then? Phrases like: the first group, the last mentioned course, etc.

📝 Here is a nice article about that: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/former-and-latter-usage

Btw, the examples above about my favorite type of writing are just technical examples. I love all the types of writing I teach. 💜

📚 My writing guides - my lodestars 📚

This post is a reply to this message:

"Irina, good afternoon! Thank you for your post! It would be really-really nice if you could share the list of the style guides here that you find most useful for yourself or most remarkable. I know only "Style. The basics of Clarity and Grace" by Joseph Williams."

📚 These two are my top two writing guides:
1. "The Little, Brown Handbook" (H. Ramsey Fowler, Jane E. Aaron)
2. "Cambridge Grammar of English" (Ronald Carter, Michael McCarthy)

These books have a lot of technical and detailed explanations. If I have a specific question and these two don't help, I google. I am very careful with the sources though - I only trust the websites of big newspapers, universities, and publishing houses.

📚 And then there are these two nice books:
3. "On Writing Well" (William Zinsser)
4. "The Elements of Eloquence" (Mark Forsyth)

But these are not reference books. "On Writing Well" is about the principles of writing non-fiction. "The Elements of Eloquence" is about stylistic devices, which can be used in both fiction and non-fiction, but definitely not in academic writing.

The recommendation in the message is also a great one. Any other recommendations? Share in the comments. 📝

📝 IELTS Writing Task 2: a paragraph rewrite 📝

Topic: "Some people believe that it is the responsibility of individuals to take care of their own health and diet. Others, however, believe that governments should make sure that their citizens have a healthy diet. Discuss both views and give your opinion."

📝 Student's original paragraph:

On the one hand, every person has a unique body and knows what is best for them. Since all people have different medical conditions and are predisposed to particular ones, they should decide what to eat and how to be treated. Allergies, chronic conditions, and inherited disorders, to name but a few, are the conditions that need to be taken into account, and this is viable only when each person cares about their own health. If one scheme is prescribed to all people, it is likely to eliminate the differences, which might in turn worsen a particular individual's condition. It is therefore reasonable for every person to take care of their health.

📝 My rewrite:

I am convinced that the responsibility should lie with each individual as each one has a unique body and therefore knows what is best for them. The unique personal conditions that impact what people eat or what well-being practices they pursue include but are not limited to allergies, inherited disorders, and chronic pains. Taking these into account is only viable if done on a personal level as the government cannot possibly know, let alone write universal regulations for millions of different cases. In fact, if one scheme was prescribed to all people, it would likely worsen a particular individual's condition. It is thus reasonable for every person to take care of their health.

Fixes: clarity of the position in the first sentence, cohesion and the overall flow.

🦩 IELTS Writing Task 2: idea development 🦩

Idea development is what many IELTS writers struggle with. Today, I'll share a student's paragraph with valid but underdeveloped ideas and some notes on possible development.

Topic: "Many doctors recommend that older people exercise regularly, but most patients do not follow an exercise routine. Why do you think this happens? How can older people be encouraged to exercise regularly?"

🦩 Student's original paragraph:

There are two main reasons why older adults do not exercise. Firstly, many feel that they have to be quite careful about the way they spend their money. In view of the cost of living crisis, they are not ready to pay for various sports programs as they may have other more urgent items to invest into. Secondly, those over 60 are often quite apprehensive about exercising regularly which happens due to their fear of getting injured and exacerbating their typically fragile state of health.

🦩 Possible development:

1️⃣ The first reason is on the abstract side, so it's true for people of all ages. Some ideas to develop this argument further:

- Older people no longer have an income as they are retired. Their pensions are low.
- We can give the reader a feeling of how expensive a gym membership might seem. We could say something like "A gym membership typically costs a quarter (a third? a half?) of an average pension in Russia." (I actually don't know how expensive gym memberships are.)
- We see this in the paragraph: "other more urgent items to invest into." We absolutely need to add - items such as what?

These idea not only expand the argument, but also make it specifically true for older people.

2️⃣ The second reason is valid, but it's only one sentence long! Some ideas to develop the argument further:

- Why are they afraid to get injured? Maybe because they associate exercising with rigorous exercising (such as?). Maybe they are also afraid that if they exercise in a group, the activities will be targeted at younger people and will therefore be rigorous.
- Why are might they exacerbate their health? Maybe the recovery from rigorous exercising or from injuries will be long and painful.

These are just some ideas to explore the topic in depth. More ideas? Share in the comments.

🏆 IELTS General Training 8.5! 🏆

This is our student's awesome result from today! 🧡

Teacher: Anna Skopina
Time: 14 classes (about two months)
Breakdown: R9 L9 W7.5 S7.5, Overall 8.5

Anna shares the preparation strategy for this student.

To achieve such great results:

1️⃣ We worked on the format and the structure of both writing tasks. We paid attention to the differences between formal and informal letters so that a letter to a friend sounded genuinely informal and not like a job application or an e-mail to a company manager. We also analyzed the differences between types of essays, which helped the student to answer the question precisely.

2️⃣ We worked on ideas, making sure that they were well-developed and relevant to the question. Coming up with ideas was easy in this case because this student reads a lot of popular science articles and news in English, which goes to show how much IELTS is connected to the real world and how important it is to be aware of what is happening.

3️⃣ We studied phrases and sentence structures which can be used in both writing and speaking for different purposes, such as to show cause-effect connection, speculate about the future or compare and contrast. For example:
- In many countries buying an apartment is so expensive that it is not an option for the majority of people.
- If people like what they study, they are bound to make faster progress.
- Rather than writing everything you need immediately, take some time to plan, even if you are in an exam and don’t have much time.

Of course, this result was only possible because the student’s level was already C1 and because he put in the hard work. We are very proud of him! 🧡

📊 IELTS Writing Task 1: CC case study and paragraph makeover 📊

Take a look at a paragraph below. What do you think is wrong in terms of CC?

🗒 "The categories that saw an increase over 60 years were housing, transport and leisure. The weekly percentage spent on leisure increased substantially, jumping from 9% in 1968 to 22% in 2018. Housing weekly expenses had a twofold increase, from 10% to 19%. The same is true for the transportation expenses, which, after doubling, amounted to 14% of the families’ weekly income in 2018."

What's wrong is that the order of categories in the first sentence is not the same as it is further in the text. But it should be (for hyper-systemizers and pattern-seekers like myself).

So in this specific case the first sentence should read: "The categories that saw an increase over 60 years were leisure, housing and transportation."

It's easier to process a text if the order of ideas (= categories in W1) is the same, so this change is an absolute must.

Further changes might include: 1) Not repeating the names of the categories at all; 2) Joining the categories with the same change into on sentence; 3) Going from a smaller change to a bigger one and pointing this out specifically.

🗒 My re-write:
"Expenditures on three categories saw an increase over 60 years. The figures for Transport and Housing almost doubled, with the former making up 14% and the latter 18% in 2018. The proportion spent on Leisure demonstrated a larger growth, constituting 9% in the first given year and reaching 22% in the final year."

(‼️ This post is based on IELTS 17 Test 3 but does not fully reflect it. It is only meant to draw attention to a certain CC mistake.)

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- Getting ‘Cozy’ with Crafting Poetry (Ideas, Images/Sensory Details, Sounds, different types of Poems)
- Essay Writing (Personal Statements/Essay with Attitude/Analysis Essay)

Additional topics could be different genres/writing forms (travel writing, TV Scripts) or a more in-depth look at teaching techniques, anchor texts, stylistic devices, etc.

Each unit will include example texts and analysis of literary elements to inspire our own writing. Writing activities will be followed by an in-class Read Around, where we read our drafts to the class, notice what we each did well, and gain inspiration for our writing revision process. Additionally, we will examine the teaching strategies and explore how to adapt to your own teaching contexts. In particular, we will focus on approaches to providing writing feedback to students, the Read Around, and analyzing anchor texts.

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