IELTS Skills

Academic Writing

Overview

What is Academic Writing

Like any writing, Academic Writing has specific conventions, rules, vocabulary, tone, formality, structure,… For example when writing a imaginary story you are very free to write what you want. You can start your story in the middle, then go to the ending and finally the beginning. You can leave the audience (reader) with questions, wanting for more, so he/she will read your next story. These are things you cannot do with Academic writing, you start with a clear idea, your Thesis Statement, which you defend with evidence based arguments. Your arguments are logically structured and are there to back up your thesis statement. Therefore, you need to plan and be focused; you will have to structure your writing logically and coherent; and you will need evidence to back up your ideas.

All this is needed, because the purpose of Academic Writing is to generate knowledge, to go into discussion and come to some sort of conclusion or consensus. Academic Writing is meant to be criticized, I have an Idea and I believe this idea for the following reasons. The reader will read it and might agree with some of those reasons, but might also have counter arguments. Through this discussion knowledge and better understanding is generated, which is the true purpose of Academic Writing.   

However, for our purpose we will only focus on the basics of Academic Writing needed for IELTS Writing Task 2.

How to Academic writing

Thesis Statement or Claim

Let’s have a look at one of the questions for IELTS Writing Task 2

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

A zoo has no useful purpose.

Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.

You are asked to agree or disagree with the statement: A zoo has no useful purpose. This means you either believe that Zoos have a useful purpose or you believe that Zoos do not have a useful purpose. So, the main point of the essay or your claim will be either you believe they do or you believe they don’t. This claim of yours or the main point of the essay is called your Thesis Statement. This means that for this example you will have 1 of the following Thesis Statements:

  • I personally believe that Zoos have no useful purpose
  • I personally believe that Zoos have a useful purpose

You only need to defend one of these, which means you pick one. Normally you should pick the one you believe in, but for IELTS Writing Task 2 it is more important to write as much or as well as you can. If you do not find enough arguments to support your Thesis Statement, then you will need to maybe pick the opposite Thesis Statement. So, if you don’t find enough ideas for Zoos having a useful purpose but you have many for no useful purpose then you should switch sides. You can also sit on the fence and defend both side, but that is most of the time too difficult, so it’s much better to pick 1 side and defend it. For other IELTS Writing Task 2 you might need a different approach, for more on this have a look at the 5 IELTS Writing Task 2 question types.

So, now we know what a Thesis Statement is: your main idea, main claim that you believe to be true or that you need to discuss. In our example you could have 2 possible claims: zoos are useful, or zoos are not useful

Arguments

Now that you have your Thesis statement, you will need Arguments to defend this statement or claim. For example, if my Thesis Statement is: My country is the best in the word, you will need to show me why it is the best country in the world because the reader might think that her country is the best and you will need to convince her to change her mind.

These Arguments can be clear facts or they can be opinions that you believe to be true. In proper Academic Writing, you will need real facts, hardcore data, or Academic references to other sources which agree with your opinion. All this will not be needed for IELTS Writing Task 2. You just need some arguments that you believe to be true, which you back up with some personal evidence or examples. The examiner just wants to see if you can use logic to defend your Thesis Statement and have good examples for them.

So let’s go back to our example of Zoos and our 2 Thesis Statements:

  • Zoos have a purpose
  • Zoos don’t have a purpose

Here we need to generate some ideas or brainstorm, why they have a purpose or not and what this purpose might be. If you have issues brainstorming have a look at our brainstorming section and brainstorming exercises.

So what could be the use of Zoos:

  • They help preserve wildlife
  • They can protect endangered species
  • They can help scientists to study animals and their behavior
  • They can be educational for children and schools
  • They can be fun for children to go watch and play
  • They still provide a job for people who work there

Why do zoos have no purpose:

  • Zoos are artificial and do not mimic real-life environments
  • It is cruel for animals to lock them up in a small space
  • Animals are no longer free and depend on people to sustain them and provide food for them
  • Natural instincts are repressed, as they no longer hunt
  • They are unethical for different reasons, which reasons you will have to explain
  • You can better help preserve natural environments than creating zoos
  • They use animal cruelty to make money, as they are still a business
  • We should not exploit animals for entertainment or make money

Now we have multiple Arguments to help us defend our Thesis Statement. In normal Academic Writing, you would compare and contrast some of the arguments and weigh them to see if they have equal value. For example how much is the economic value of providing jobs, compared to the cruelty of the animals? This is done as in Academic Writing you will always need to have a look at both sides, you cannot discuss one Argument, without talking about a counter-argument. In the final conclusion when you have compared everything then you make your final decision, based on the evidence and Arguments provided and clearly state that zoos do or do not have a purpose. Other scientists can then read your writing, check if your Arguments are valid and maybe provide some counter Arguments, or agree with your Thesis Statement.

However, for this IELTS Writing Task 2 example, you need to pick a side first, purpose or no purpose and then select 2 Arguments to defend your Thesis Statement. This means that you only need 2 arguments you can develop, expand and provide an example for in 2 body paragraphs. Let’s now have look at how we develop our paragraphs.

Topic sentence

We have our Thesis Statement, and we have multiple Arguments to defend our claim. Next we select 2 of them we can develop further to use as the body of our essay. These 2 Arguments will be developed and transformed into the topic sentence of our paragraphs.

Let’s say we are for zoos and that they have a clear purpose and we use the following 2 Arguments:

  • Protect endangered pieces
  • Let scientists study animals better

These 2 Arguments could be turned into the following 2 Topic Sentences:

  • First and foremost zoos have an important preservation function and help us protect many of the endangered species.
  • Second, since animals are in a confined space it is easier for scientist to study their behavior and better understand them.

As you can see we have taken the 2 Arguments and written them a bit better, more Academic and transformed them into Topic Sentences for our 2 paragraphs and added some linkers. The next step is to develop these Arguments more and provide some form of evidence and or examples to back up these Arguments. As you cannot just say something is true because it is true, you need to explain why you think this is true.

Developing your Arguments

You have your Argument, transformed it into a Topic Sentence, now you need to further develop it. So, let’s take our first topic sentence and further develop it into a proper paragraph:

First and foremost zoos have an important preservation function and help us protect many of the endangered species.

Now we need to explain why they help us protect endangered species because just mentioning it without any proof or evidence is not very academic.

For example, they help us protect endangered species by:

  • Providing a safe and well-protected space poachers can’t reach
  • They provide a space where pollution cannot harm them
  • They have mating programs where they can try to make sure the species survive
  • It can make people aware that these species are in danger and need special protection, which might change people’s behaviors, or help donate money to save them.

As you can see there are several ways that zoos can help with preservation. All you need to do is pick 1 or 2 and use these in your paragraph.

So let’s again use our example:

First and foremost zoos have an important preservation function and help us protect many of the endangered species. The physical space creates a safe haven for the animals which poachers cannot reach, ultimately protecting them. Furthermore, most zoos have some form of a mating program where endangered animals are put together to ensure the survival of the species. For example, some zoos in China put male and female pandas together in the hope to one day have baby pandas. As a result, zoos not only protect these animals but also make sure they can increase the population and therefore are of vital importance for the survival of certain species.

As you can see we have chosen 2 closely related Arguments to defend the Claim: The argument of protection and reproduction. We have even added an example of reproduction, as examples are asked for in the task.

The fact that many reproduction programs fail and not really deliver could be used as a counter-argument in the academic debate, but for the IELTS test, this is not important. As long as you can give a valid argument for your claim, you do not need to worry about a valid counter-argument. Furthermore, your example does not need to include, studies of scientific data, you do not need to mention how many programs there are, what animals are in them, what their rate of success is. This would only be necessary for real Academic Writing, not for IELTS Writing Task 2. Remember you only have 40 minutes and 250 words to fully develop your essay, it is not like a thesis, of 60 pages, which takes you a year to research and write.

The only thing we still have added to our development of the arguments is a conclusion to our paragraph. Here you quickly review your developments and state that they are the reason for your Argument. Now you have 1 paragraph, the same has to be done in the second paragraph:

  • Pick an Argument
  • Change it into a topic sentence
  • Develop your Argument
  • Add an example when needed and/or asked for.
  • Finalize with a conclusion mentioning why your Argument is so important.

The only 2 other things missing in our Academic essay are the introduction and the conclusion.

For your introduction, you just need to Paraphrase the question and add your Thesis Statement that you develop in the body. You could add one more sentence to frame the discussion. For more information on how to write IELTS Writing Task 2 or how to write an introduction, just follow the links.

For your conclusion of the essay you just need to quickly revisit your viewpoint and add some suggestion for the future. Again, if you need more help on writing a conclusion for IELTS Writing Task 2, just follow the link.

Now you should have a good idea on how Academic Writing works, all you need to do is practice some more.

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