How To Write an Effective

Introduction For IELTS Writing Task

2
BY CHRISTOPHER PELL
IELTS Writing Task 2 Introduction
This post will help you write better introductions in your Task 2 IELTS essays and
show the specific sentences I advise all of my students to use when writing
IELTS Writing Task 2 introductions.
The introduction is the first part of the essay the examiner will read and it will give
them a good first impression of what to expect in the rest of the essay.
Just like in person, first impressions last.
I often tell my students that a bad introduction in IELTS writing part 2 is the same
as going in to the speaking exam and being rude to the examiner- no matter how
good you are in the rest of it, the examiner won’t be happy and unhappy
examiners are more likely to give you a lower mark.
Despite this warning, many good students go on to produce introductions with a
few common problems in them.
Common Problems
1 Talking too generally about the topic.
Most of these essays start off with ‘Nowadays……’ or ‘In modern life….’ followed
by general information about the topic. In my opinion, this is the worst start you
can possibly make. Remember that you are supposed to answer the question not
write generally about the topic.
2 Not including a thesis statement
This is the most important sentence in the essay. Not including one will lose you
marks in several different ways. I will tell you more about this below.
3 Not outlining what you are going to do
If you don’t include a sentence outlining what your essay will say, the examiner
doesn’t really know what you are going to write about in the rest of your essay.
This will also lose you marks. I’ll show you how to write an outline sentence
below.
4 Trying to write a ‘hook’ or be entertaining
Remember this is an IELTS exam, not a university essay. There are no extra
points for being interesting, in fact being boring will probably help you. This will
help you avoid ‘flowery’ language.
5 Using an informal style
Know your audience. You are expected to write in an academic style.
Good and Bad Examples
Question: There is a good deal of evidence that increasing car use is contributing
to global warming and having other undesirable effects on people’s health and
well-being.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Good Introduction
Rising global temperatures and human health and fitness issues are often
viewed as being caused by the expanding use of automobiles. This essay agrees
that increasing use of motor vehicles is contributing to rising global temperatures
and certain health issues. Firstly, this essay will discuss the production of
greenhouse gases by vehicles and secondly, it will discuss other toxic chemicals
released by internal combustion engines.
Bad Introduction
Nowadays, cars are a very popular way of getting around. Day by day many
more people drive cars around but others feel that they cause global warming.
Global warming is one of the most serious issues in modern life. They also affect
people’s health and well-being which is also a serious issue.
As you can see the bad example talks about the topic very generally, copies
words and phrases from the question and doesn’t include a thesis statement or
outline statement.
If your introductions look something like this, don’t worry. Most of my students
write introductions a lot like this when they first start in my class and the structure
below always helps them fix any problems and write very effective introductions.
Structure of a Good Introduction
If you use this structure you will not only score higher marks but you will also
save time in the exam. If you practice enough, introductions will become easy
and you will do them in just a few minutes. This will leave you lots of time to focus
on the main body paragraphs where you can pick up lots of mark.
An IELTS writing task 2 opinion essay should have three sentences and these
three sentences should be:
 1 Paraphrase question
2 Thesis statement
3 Outline statement
That’s it. Simple! Let’s look at each sentence in more detail.
1 Paraphrase Question
Paraphrasing means stating the question again, but with different words so that it
has the same meaning. We do this by using synonyms and flipping the order of
the sentences around.
Question: There is a good deal of evidence that increasing car use is contributing
to global warming and having other undesirable effects on people’s health and
well-being.
Paraphrase: Rising global temperatures and human health and fitness issues are
often viewed as being caused by the expanding use of automobiles.
The synonyms I’ve used are:
Increasing- expanding
Car use- use of automobiles
Global warming- rising global temperatures
People’s health and well-being- human health and fitness
As you can see, I then switched the order of the sentence around.
I have therefore demonstrated to the examiner that I can paraphrase and have a
wide range of vocabulary. These are two of the things that the examiner is
specifically looking for and you will gain marks for including them.
You should practice this with past paper questions.
2 Thesis Statement
This is the most important sentence in your essay. This is your main idea and I
often describe it to students as how you feel about the whole issue in one
sentence. It tells the examiner that you have understood the question and will
lead to a clear and coherent essay.
Let’s look at the thesis sentence from the previous example:
Thesis statement: This essay agrees that increasing use of motor vehicles is
contributing to rising global temperatures and certain health issues.
It is always just one sentence long so you will have to practice summing up your
opinion in one sentence. It should also address the micro-keywords and not the
topic in general.
You should start your thesis statement with:
This essay agrees that….. or this essay disagrees that….. (Opinion essays)
The main cause(s) of this issue is….. (Causes and solutions)
The principal advantage(s) is (xxxxx) and the main disadvantage is (xxxxxx).
(Advantage and disadvantages).
For a discussion (of two points of view) essay you should state both points of
view clearly.
Let’s look at another example:
Some aspects of celebrity culture have a bad influence on young people.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
To keep things simple, we have two options-
1 Agree that some aspects of celebrity culture have a bad influence on young
people.
2 Disagree that some aspects of celebrity culture have a bad influence on
young people.
My essay will argue that celebrity culture does have a bad influence and my
thesis statement will there be:
This essay agrees that the some famous people’s lifestyles have a detrimental
effect on the youth of today.
I have stated my opinion in one sentence and used synonyms to make sure I
don’t just repeat the question.
Thesis statements are very important but only in question that ask you for your
opinion. Some IELTS questions do not ask you for your opinion and in these
cases you can leave it out.
3 Outline Statement
Now that you have paraphrased the question and told the examiner what you
think in your thesis sentence, you are now going to tell the examiner what you
will discuss in the main body paragraphs. In other words, you will outline what the
examiner will read in the rest of the essay. This should be one sentence only.
Example:
Question: There is a good deal of evidence that increasing car use is contributing
to global warming and having other undesirable effects on people’s health and
well-being.
Outline statement: Firstly, this essay will discuss the production of greenhouse
gases by vehicles and secondly, it will discuss other toxic chemicals released by
internal combustion engines.
So what I have done is just look at my main body paragraphs and wrote about
what they contain. You should have only one main idea per paragraph. In this
essay, I have only two main body paragraphs, so I only need to say two things in
the outline statement.
Main body paragraph 1- production of greenhouse gases by cars.
Main body paragraph 2- toxic chemical produced by car engines.
Again, your main body paragraphs should have only one main idea so it should
be easy to spot these and then write a sentence about them.
For advantages and disadvantages essays and problem and solution essays you
could write something like this:
Advantages and disadvantages: this essay will first discuss the (main
advantage(s)) followed by an analysis of the (main disadvantage(s)).
Problem and Solution: This essay will analyse the principal problem(s) and offer
solutions to this issue.
Final Example
Question: Learning to manage money is one of the key aspects to adult life. How
in your view can individuals best learn to manage their money?
Good answer: One of the keys to adulthood is appreciating how to budget your
finances. It is clear that the best way someone can learn this, is by managing
money during childhood. Firstly, the essay will discuss the importance of parental
involvement during childhood and secondly, the essay will look at the importance
of having a part time job during childhood.
As you can see, the above introduction follows the structure I laid out above.