Tuesday 4 June 2013

IELTS Exam Preparation Tips: Academic Writing Paper Part 2

The IELTS exam is the most widely used English test in the world. It is used as an admission test for schools, colleges and universities as well as a screening test for job applications and immigration. It comprises of Four papers: Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. This article will focus on Part 2 of the Academic Writing Paper.
The ability to write effectively in English is essential for success in your studies and the academic writing paper includes activities similar to those you will use in your studies at boarding school or university: Analyzing & Reporting data and Essay Writing. The IELTS Writing Paper lasts one hour and is split into two parts: Part 1 - Describing Graphical Data and Part 2 - Argumentative Essay Writing.
Writing Paper Part II Tips
  • Read the question carefully before you start. There are frequently two parts: a general, background statement and a more specific topic question based around that. Ensure that you answer the question and don't just write about the background issue.

  • Manage your time: You should spend 40 minutes on this task and only 20 minutes for Paper I.

  • Spend 3 or 4 minutes to plan your answer before you start to write.

  • Do not copy the question word for word. If you do so then the words will not count and you may be penalized (see next point).

  • Write at least 250 words. You will be penalized for essays that are less than this so check the word count carefully. Do not write more than 280, however, or again you will be penalized.

  • Use a range of vocabulary and do not repeat words. Use synonyms instead

  • Choose formal words rather than simple ones: For instance use purchase instead of buy.

  • Organize your work properly with correct paragraphs: An introduction (40-50 words) followed by two or three body paragraphs (160-170 words) and a clear conclusion (about 40 words).

  • Use a range of grammatical and sentence structures and include a couple of complex sentence structures to show the examiner your understanding of English.

  • Write cohesively: Link sentences and paragraphs so that the meaning follows on. However, do not use too many conjunctions so that your writing becomes repetitive.

  • Proofread your writing at the end, You should allow 5 minutes for this.
The best way to prepare for your IELTS Exam Writing Paper is by taking an IELTS preparation course with an expert IELTS tutor. In this way you can get guidance and help in order for you to improve your writing skills quickly and get the test score that you need.
Ian Nock is CEO, Director of Studies and Senior Business Coach at HKEnglish.com who have unique vision for the future of language services and communication skills training in Hong Kong, China.
Pre written Papers

How to Write Effective Scholarship Essays


There are hundreds of thousands of scholarship opportunities available to students. Many students are deterred from applying for these opportunities because they worry about scholarship essays. There are a number of resources and tips that students can use in order to learn how to write effective scholarship essays.
One of the most important tips about writing an essay is to determine your topic. Many application forms require that a student write about a general idea and not a specific topic. Students may have to write about a time they showed leadership strengths or how they overcame a problem when working with a group. These broad topics are often given to allow students to relate to a personal experience in their life. Any student who has not encountered a situation that is similar to the topic should state what they would do in that situation. A writer should never lie about a situation. It is better to state that you have not yet been involved in that type of situation.
Another important tip about how to write effective scholarship essays is to have your essays reviewed by a teacher. Students should always spell check and proofread their own work. However, a teacher can often find errors that many students may over look. Students should also consider having their work reviewed by more than one teacher. The more individuals who review your essay, the better chance for constructive feedback as well as catching spelling/grammar errors.
A third tip on how to write effective scholarship essays is to take your time. Students who try to write a scholarship essays in one day often do not have the best essay. Many essays can take weeks or months to properly develop as well as craft. Students should start their essay early to ensure that they have the proper amount of time to think about the topic as well as write their thoughts. Students also should ensure that they complete the rest of their scholarship essay ahead of time. Many students complete their essay only to forget to complete the rest of their application. Ensure that you submit all portions of the paperwork in order to be considered for the scholarship.

Is it Ethical and Legal to Buy Papers and Essays?

I believe it is ethical to use the custom essay writing services. You do not still anything, you pay enough fair price for the service you use, you simply delegate the part of your work and can concentrate on what really matters to you. You are free to get an outside help and delegate your writing assignments to professional writers same as if you would get your watches fixed or car repaired by third party experts.
During my study I had several courses that I considered to be absolutely useless, I loved my major and make all writing assignments myself, but I hated Compositions, where you need to write some blah-blah-blah about your personal experiences and make 5 revisions polishing your work. I always ordered papers in such cases and haven't experienced any ethical problems with that. Instead of distressing myself I could concentrate on what I really liked.
I did some research to find out is it legal to buy essays, term papers, etc. I personally have never experienced any legal problems with using such services. I did have problems when some "trustful" custom essay writing services provided me with plagiarized papers, but it never caused any legal problems. From what I have researched I found that it can be a problem for companies that provide the service, especially for paper mills. Some states have statutes against the sale of a "term paper, essay, report, thesis or dissertation" to students. But you, as a student, cannot be detected if you use trustful custom essay writing service and you will not have any legal problems, they keep all information private.

How to Write a Persuasive Essay

If you look at the basic structure on how to write a persuasive essay, it may appear simple.
1. Title
2. Thesis
3. Paragraph 1 - supporting facts
4. Paragraph 2 - supporting facts
5. Paragraph 3 - supporting facts
6. Conclusion
However, when you try to write an essay, do you often struggle with confusion, frustration, and writer's block? Do you feel your paper's argument lacks conviction? Here are five basic rules to help you write a persuasive essay.
1. Select a topic you are knowledgeable about and that piques one of your passions.
Learning how to write a persuasive essay is an exercise in your ability to sell. You must be able sell your argument in writing and get the reader to buy it. Even the top copywriters who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to craft effective sales copy have difficulty persuading buyers on a subject they know little about or that doesn't pique one of their passions. To be persuasive, you will need to emphasize facts and hot buttons with confidence. While your professor may assign you the topic for your essay, addressing a particular viewpoint related to the subject that expresses your area of knowledge and sentiments will help you with writing a compelling essay.
2. Identify your target audience.
It is important that you identify your target audience before you start. Don't try to write to "everyone". You can't create a convincing argument if you are trying to bring in every possible view point on the subject. There are too many beliefs and perceptions to address. Selecting your target audience will help focus your choices for your thesis statement and your supporting facts.
3. Write first. Edit later.
Writing any document is an extremely difficult task if you edit your ideas as you are trying to write them. You will develop a serious case of writer's block if you proceed with an unrealistic expectation of writing an A-worthy paper on the first draft. You aren't being graded on your rough drafts, so let your writing flow. Set a time limit of 30 minutes or an hour to just get your ideas down on paper. Your ideas don't need to be complete sentences. Then, map out how the ideas in your rough draft relate to your thesis. Some ideas will stand out as primary theories, while other content will become supporting points, and you will delete other content that doesn't strengthen your argument. Once you have the outline or structure of your essay, write another draft before you begin to edit it for grammar, consistency and flow.
4. Make sure the essay flows.
A well-constructed, persuasive argument requires you to take control of the reader's attention and lead them from your thesis statement to each supporting paragraph and finish with a strong conclusion in a logical process. If your essay doesn't flow smoothly from paragraph to paragraph, it will diminish the strength of your convictions. When you are writing and editing your paper, make sure that you can transition logically from one idea to the next until you reach your conclusion.
5. Address the supporting and opposing hot buttons.
If you are going to convince the reader that they should subscribe to your way of thinking, you need to pit the hot button or buttons you are supporting against their dominant, opposing philosophies. Don't be afraid to be controversial as long as you have strong, supporting facts. Luke-warm conjectures or wildly subjective statements that have little grounding in fact will not influence the reader. You will write a persuasive essay by addressing the opposing ideas objectively and comparing them to your perspectives on the hot points you favor and the facts that support them.
When you are including facts, it is important to reference them according to the guidelines of the writing format your professor assigns. To help save time when you write a persuasive essay, consider using formatting software. With just a few simple clicks, you can properly format your paper. This will free up your time so you can focus on the substance of your paper instead of the style.

Writing A Well Prepared SAT Essay


The essay is the first section of every SAT. Therefore it is essential to write a great essay. The essay is worth a maximum of 240 points towards the total writing score of 800. Knowing that you have written a great essay will provide you with the positive momentum necessary to attack the rest of the test. The good news is that the essay topics assigned will be broad enough to allow you to be creative and to adapt your thesis to anything you feel like writing about.
The best way to prepare for the essay is to review your life experiences. Buy a stack of 3"x5" index cards. Use an index card for any event that had a profound impact on you. Make sure you jot down at least 3 bullet points per index card. For example, let's say you went on a European family vacation, or had an interesting summer job. Maybe a certain individual taught you an unforgettable skill or lesson. Perhaps you read a book that you enjoyed or witnessed an unusual event, or read something in the newspaper that affected you. All of these index cards serve as "banks" of potential information for your SAT essay. When test day arrives, you will be ready with sufficient substance to include in your essay.
At the start of the SAT, all students are given paper consisting of 51 lines to write an essay. This space is enough for 500 words of average size handwriting. The essay is not a debate. Answer the question by stating your thesis and supporting it with examples. There are no right or wrong opinions. Organization and clarity are more important than being factually correct. An essay should consist of an Introduction, a body paragraph and a conclusion at minimum. It is preferred that the essay be supported by three examples. Always place your strongest argument in the first paragraph of the body. Therefore, if you run out of time, at least the grader reads your best effort.
Use the first two minutes to map out a crude outline. This will help you organize and keep your train of thought. Use the last two to three minutes to check over your writing. Check for run-on sentences, double sentences, or other obvious mistakes that could be easily corrected.
Write neatly! If you have poor penmanship, try printing. If you essay is illegible and the reader cannot read your handwriting you will get a score of zero.

Home-School Writing: Best Topics for a Personal Narrative

Your home-school teen will write, yes. But what will he or she write? They have lived their own story; they know themselves. But how will the reader know and see and touch what they have experienced? Show your teens to look at their own story with the eyes of the reader.
Always start with a personal narrative. Your child will select some event or activity they participated in or something that happened to them, sometime in the last few years. You want them to pick an event that has interest and action, with a little suspense if possible. Narratives with no "problems" are usually not interesting. Difficulty and solution is what makes any personal narrative enjoyable reading.
I always have my students write their narrative rough draft in one sitting. The more prepared they are beforehand, the better success they have in writing that first Paper. There is a pre-writing process that will make it much easier for your children to write their own story. But first, what event should they pick?
Ideas for a Narrative Topic - think about:
  • a time of overcoming adversity
  • an event that altered the course of one's life
  • a period of uncertainty or great fear
  • a thrilling experience
  • an accomplishment that brought acceptance, recognition, or a feeling of pride
  • an unexpected or dramatic happening
Have your teen jot down three possible topics or events or things they did or things that happened to them that would make a great narrative paper. Have them circle the one they prefer, remembering that suspense and difficulties of some sort (even humorous difficulties) make the best narrative.
The narrative chosen should cover one event only. Do not try to include more than one event. Some events do happen over time, for instance, a school year. When this event happened should be clear in a general way such as, "A couple of years ago," or "Last summer," and so on. The setting should also be clear - where things happened.
(Sadly), accidents always make great topics for personal narratives. It is easy to write about an accident and craft it into a powerful paper. Getting stranded in a bus depot far away from home, or catching that big fish, or winning the big game all make good topics. Tense and difficult times such as hurricanes or house fires are easy to write about. Humor is difficult to pull off well, but humorous narratives, done well, certainly never fall into the "boring" category.
The best topics, however, are those events or incidences that have the deepest meaning to your child. I still remember well the 14-year-old girl who was asked to sing at her beloved grandmother's funeral. She was certain, all the way up to the moment she stood in front of friends and family, that she could not do it, that she would fail in tears. But something happened, there, on that platform. She sang from her heart, more beautifully than she had ever done. There was not a dry eye in the room.
That paper was written over ten years ago. I, the reader, remember it well, out of hundreds of other narratives I have forgotten since. I remember it because of how much that moment meant to this teenage girl.
The lives of your teens are filled with more stories and meaningful things than they realize. The right topics for their personal narrative papers will set them on the course of writing well.
Daniel Yordy is Your Editor at The Writing Conservatory. He has taught writing to students - and learned writing - for almost 30 years. His effective writing course has been hammered out inside of junior high, high school, and college classrooms.
Academic Papers

Memoir Writing - Three Tips For Effective Pre-writing

Before you begin to write your memoir, there are a number of non-writing tasks which you must do--this phase of compiling your memoir is called pre-writing, and it is essential to writing better stories.
Pre-writing can include:
-list making.
-rereading letters, journal entries, newspaper clippings.
-talking to people and reminiscing.
-doing any of the numerous writing exercises in this book or others to stimulate your memory and keep your interest high.
Pre-writing can actually occur at several points in the lifewriting process: at the very start of the lifewriting task, as an effective warm-up, whenever you pick up your writing after an absence.
1) Don't start writing until you have done pre-writing. Pre-writing generates memories to write about. Making a list of memories and emotions associated with those memories provides a convenient list of story topics. This is called a lifelist.
2) Let the pre-writing dictate where you will start writing a lifestory. Pre-writing often reveals a point at which you will feel most comfortable starting. This is your entry point, the point at which you simply must begin to write. That point can be a setting, a dialogue, or an action. Paying attention to what you most feel compelled to write will prove to be not only the most enjoyable way to proceed but also the most effective.
Resist the urge to start writing from what seems like the beginning of your story. Instead simply start writing from the point that most commands your attention.
3) Write on half-sheets of paper. Filling a full sheet of paper with words is often the hardest part of writing--so take an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper and cut it in half. It is easier to fill a half sheet of paper with writing than to fill a full sheet!
On the half sheets, write whatever comes to mind--without deciding how any of this will all come together. At this stage, it is more important to write regularly and voluminously than to write well (that will come later). On top of each half page, write the name of your writing topic as your title. (Your topic should come from your lifelist.)
Your goal now is to produce a stack of half sheets of writing. Do not be concerned with whether or not you are writing well or how your final draft will shape up, nor what the beginning scene of your story will be. Do not even be concerned with whether or not you are filling up the whole half-page or whether some half pages are full and others have only a few short sentences.
You will organize later what you have written: shuffle the half sheets into a more appropriate order than they were written in; decide that the material on Page 4 belongs before that on Page 1 and that the piece about the picnic belongs after the piece about the conversation with your father. As you order your sheets, you may realize that you already have written something that can serve as a beginning or that you clearly don't have a good beginning yet.