Essay B2

How to Write an Essay for B2
An essay is a piece of writing in which you are asked to discuss a topic that might be
controversial or relevant somehow. You should take into account different points of view,
giving arguments and showing your opinion. That’s why an essay has the following
characteristics.
• Purpose: as it is stated above, with an essay we evaluate a topic, situation or

problem that is, somehow, relevant or controversial.
• Language and register: The language of an essay should be formal and objective.
That’s why we should avoid common words (things, stuff…) and contractions (can’t,
don’t...) Also, make sure that you justify all your ideas and that you use appropriate
connectors to link your sentences and paragraphs.
• Structure: When writing an essay, you can choose whether to give it a title or not.
This could be the same question provided in the task. As for the structure, it should
have an introductory paragraph, and a conclusion at the end. The body should
consist of 2 or 3 main paragraphs, depending on how you decide to structure your
ideas.
• Giving your opinion: There are many different ways to give your opinion in an
essay. Typically, in an essay we tend to express our opinion at the end, although it
is acceptable to do so at the beginning, too. What really matters is that you justify
everything you write.
• Coherence: This is important for all writings, but specially for essays. It is an
argumentative text so you cannot write unconnected sentences or paragraphs, this
means your ideas must follow a logical order and being connected by adequate
connectors.
In every essay for B2 there are a two things you have to analyse before you can start to
put your pen to paper:
1. What you have to include in your text: in every essay task there are a
situation/topic, a question for you to answer and three topic points. You must deal
with all three things.
2. What type of essay it is: there are two different types of essay: an opinion essay
(they present the writer’s personal opinion of the topic, supported with examples)
and a for and against essay (they present both sides of an issue in a balanced
way.). Depending on which one we have to write we’ll need to use one structure or
another.
Here is an example of a typical essay task:
Now that we have a task, lets focus on the things we mentioned earlier: Firstly, we have an
opinion essay so we’ll structure our writing accordingly.
Secondly, we already know the topic is ‘different ways in which you can protect the
environment’ and that we need to answer the question ‘What can people do to help protect
the environment?’ talking about recycling, using bicycles instead of walking and our own
personal idea.
Let’ move to How to organise your opinion essay:
• Introduction: Introduce the topic using a general statement. Your introduction

should always put the topic in the context of today’s world and paraphrase the
question of the essay as well as including your opinion.
• Body: Give the first (recycling), second (bicycles and walking) and third reason
(your own idea) to support your opinion (each reason in a separate paragraph).
Each paragraph of the body should start with a topic sentence which introduces the
main idea of the paragraph. After that, provide specific justifications for your opinion,
using examples if necessary, you can even acknowledge other points of view.
• Conclusion: A good essay is rounded off with a nice conclusion. In a good
conclusion you should summarise your the essay in one sentence and clearly state
your opinion on the question one last time.
Regarding for and against essay there are two ways to structure a ‘for and against’
essay. You can either contrast an argument for and against in each paragraph:

question of the essay.
• Body: In each paragraph you contrast and argument for and against the paragraph
topic in each paragraph.
• Conclusion: Same as in an opinion essay
Or you give all the arguments for in one paragraph and then all the arguments against in
the next paragraph.

question of the essay.
• Body: Write two or three arguments for in one paragraph, and two or three
arguments against in a different one.
• Conclusion: Same as an opinion essay.
Now that we know the different parts of an essay, let’s take a look at the following model
answer:
In this example we can see the different parts of an essay well defined. It’s important that
your writing is visually appealing, apart from having good grammar and vocabulary.
This means that the paragraphs should be well defined, with a space in between, and
that you should know when to break lines. The title summarises the topic of the essay and
each paragraph has a clear purpose. Connectors are used to create a coherent structure,
contractions and common words are not used and a good range of expressions are used
(One of the things that, In the last few decades, For this reason…)
Expressions to use in your essays

In this section, we are going to focus on different expressions you can use in the
different parts of the essay.
Introduction
• Some people claim/believe/say
• It is sometimes said that…
• The question is…
• We often read/hear that…
Stating your opinion
• In my opinion,
• As I see it,
• From my point of view…
• I find it…
• I hold the view…
• The way I see it…
• It looks a bit…
• It seems to me…
• I am under the impression…
• It seems as if…
• I think…
• I would say…
• I reckon…
• From my understanding…
• I would like to point out…
Justifying your opinions:
• because…
• the reason is…
• the reason I believe that is…
• the facts suggest…
• the evidence shows…
• taking into account what I have seen…
Making extra points
• What’s more…
• In addition…
• Furthermore…
• On top of that,…
Linking ideas:
• As I have said before…
• With respect to the point on…
• Regarding…
• Like I have said…
• In relation to…
• Taking into account…
Introducing a contradictory point
• Although/Even though…
• Despite + noun/gerund/
• Despite the fact that…
• However…
Contrasting views for and against:
• On the one hand/side…on the other
• While it’s true that… You could also argue that…
• Nevertheless,…/However,…
• One (dis)advantage/ Another (dis)advantage is that…
• Even though…
Concluding
• On balance…
• I feel/believe that..
• In my opinion…
• Summarising…
• To sum up,
• In conclusion,

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How to Write an Essay for B2

• Purpose: as it is stated above, with an essay we evaluate a topic, situation or

Let’ move to How to organise your opinion essay:

• Introduction: Introduce the topic using a general statement. Your introduction

• Introduction: Introduce the topic using a general statement. Your introduction

• Conclusion: Same as in an opinion essay

• Introduction: Introduce the topic using a general statement. Your introduction

• Conclusion: Same as an opinion essay.

Expressions to use in your essays

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