English essay writing tips - Improve your IELTS, TOEFL, CAE writing score
Do you need to improve your academic essays
Do you need a higher IELTS, CAE,
or TOEFL writing score? In either case,
you need to follow certain guidelines to maximise
Hello and welcome, everyone. This is Minoo at Anglo-Link. In today's tutorial, we're going to
look at some general essay writing tips
and some specific tips for three English
and CAE. By the end of this tutorial,
you will have a good idea of the steps
you need to take to improve your essay writing skills. O.K.
The 1st tip is: Follow the instructions.
Make sure you read the question carefully so you can
and also make sure you follow the instructions.
A common mistake is to ignore what your teacher or
examiner wants to see. If the rubric says:
Support your opinion with examples,
and you fail to provide examples, you will not
get a high score even if you write
Also, respect the number of words
they have instructed you to write. Too short
is definitely not good, but too long
is equally problematic as quantity may
Another common mistake is to spend
too little or too much time planning
and too little or no time revising.
Firstly, making brief notes of any ideas
that come to you when you read the question.
Some people call this brainstorming.
And secondly, organising your ideas
and finding supporting arguments and examples
for each point. This is often called
Revising involves rereading what you have written
Firstly, to make sure you have organised
and make any changes that will make your answer
And secondly, to correct any spelling,
punctuation, or grammar mistakes that
O.K. Let's look at my 3rd tip:
Always use the standard essay format.
A common mistake is to write your answer
without an introduction or a conclusion.
Make the first paragraph the introduction.
Your introduction must have at least two sentences.
The first sentence must introduce the topic
Try to make your topic sentence an interesting
This sentence is often called a 'hook',
whose purpose is to generate interest in the reader.
The second sentence should present your answer
to the question as briefly as possible.
Don't present any arguments or
Keep your introduction short. The following
two or three paragraphs constitute
In each body paragraph, you state
one single point in support of your
brief answer in the introduction.
This is where you present your supporting arguments and
A 300-word essay would typically include
And, the final paragraph is the conclusion.
This brings us to tip number 4,
which is: Vary your vocabulary
The examiner is looking for a good knowledge of
vocabulary. You show this by using synonyms
in different parts of your essay, and
by using appropriate adjectives and adverbs
to strengthen your message. Therefore,
make sure that you use your own words
when you present the topic in the introduction paragraph
and also make sure that you use different
words in your conclusion when you
summarise your points and restate your answer.
Tip number 5 is: Use transition and
Make sure you master the use of transition words
'additionally', and linking words such as
'nevertheless', 'despite', etc.
Using the correct linking and transition phrases is
extremely important in presenting your points
in a clear and easy-to-follow manner. Right,
Correct punctuation is like clear pronunciation.
It will make it comfortable for the reader to follow
The most important punctuation marks to use correctly in your essays
the semi-colon, and the full stop.
Another thing that can help your reader is
The recommended average length of sentences in a text
That's the average length. So, some of your sentences
may be 10 to 15 words, and others
O.K. Moving on to tip number 7, which is:
It goes without saying that too many grammar mistakes
Watch out especially for mistakes with tenses,
agreement, or subject-pronoun agreement.
because these can confuse the reader.
Mistakes with articles, prepositions, and
the gerund are very easy to make
when you write fast, but these are less important
as they do not usually affect the clarity
of your message, so that's why
it's important to leave 3 to 5 minutes
to revise your essay and correct any spelling,
punctuation, or grammar mistakes that you
And finally: Tip number 8: Practice
If you are new to essay writing for exams,
I'd recommend you follow these steps:
Step 1:
Revise and improve the important areas
I listed earlier, so: linking and transition
conditionals, subject-verb, and
subject-pronoun agreement. Step 2:
Familiarise yourself with the standard essay format
that I described earlier: introduction,
Step 3:
Search the official website of the test you want
to take for a list of typical essay topics
When you have found these samples, read as many
As you read them, do the following:
First, identify the paragraphs:
introduction, body 1, body 2, conclusion.
Then, underline all the linking and
Then, circle all the punctuation marks.
And finally, make a note of good vocabulary
and phrases for that particular topic.
Step 5: After you have studied 10 to
take each of the topics and spend a few minutes
Gradually, bring the time this takes you
When you feel you have become good at planning
and outlining, start writing the essays.
Gradually, bring the time it takes you to write a
Step 7:
Make sure that each time you write an essay,
you revise it and improve it as much as you can.
Initially, take your time to identify
your recurrent mistakes and work on these
Gradually, bring your revision time down to
After having written and revised 10 to 15
essays, when you are satisfied that
you cannot improve on your own anymore,
write an essay on a completely new topic,
Then, use your teacher's feedback to improve
areas that may still need work.
Well, that's it for this tutorial. I hope
you have found these tips on essay writing helpful.
If you feel you need to improve important areas of
English for essay writing such as
linking and transition words, punctuation,
tenses, etc., you are very welcome
to join my online self-study course,
where I cover all these topics.
To sign up for my course, please visit
As a course member, you will have the option
of submitting your essay to me for my feedback.