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Task 2 Introductions

Let’s take a look at how to write a really good introduction for your Task 2 formal essay that you need to write. And to do that, why don’t we use a question like you might get on Task 2 to really get a specific example of an introduction to help you see the best way to do it. All right, here’s a question you could possible face on Task 2.

We’re going to be asked to agree or disagree with this statement above, all right. Print media, including magazines and newspapers, will soon be completely replaced by Internet news sources. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement? Remember on exam day, you don’t need to really express your deep and true feelings and opinions about any topic.

Nobody’s going to check with you to see if you really believe what you’re actually saying. Now, what you do say, of course needs to be reasonable and it needs to make sense. But you should choose whichever is easiest for you to write about. Whether you agree or disagree, what’s gonna be the easiest thing for you to generate ideas about, for your body paragraphs?

Well, I’m going to say for this topic that I’m going to disagree. I’m gonna imagine it’s easiest for me to disagree with the idea that Internet news sources will completely replace magazines and newspapers in printed form. Okay so if that’s my opinion, what should my introduction look like? Well, we’re gonna look at a few pieces of a good introduction here, you can do this strategy pretty much every time on your introductions for the IELTS.

And it should help you to just build a general feeling for a good way to introduce your opinions in your essays here, if you follow this method here. So step one, a good place to start is to just express a very general statement about the world that in some very loose and general way will help to introduce the basic, basic topic of the essay. Now at this early stage in your introduction you shouldn’t mention the specific topic yet, that will come later.

It should just sort of introduce generally what the essay will be about. So, here’s an example sentence. We could say, nobody doubts that we live in a rapidly changing time. Okay, do you see how we’ve introduced in the most general way that the topic of the essay will probably be about changes over time, okay. Nothing yet about print media or online media, that will come later.

Then, after you’ve made this general statement about the world, then we can elaborate on that. Elaborate means just to say more about what we mean to explain a little bit further. It’s here in this elaboration that we want to push the topic just a little bit closer to the topic of the essay we are about to write.

So as an example, the technology of the past is being replaced every day, as seen in music recording, map-making and other areas. Do you see how we’re pushing the topic more and more towards the topic of online media replacing printed media all right. We’ve introduced that idea here, and we’ve also introduced some additional sort of areas in which that replacement might be taking place.

It’s after that elaboration that we are now ready to specify the topic. Now what we’re trying to do Is take the next step and rephrase or restate the topic that we got in the question. It’s time to know take that statement and put it into your own words okay, and you really do need to do that. You should never just copy large chunks of language from the question.

You need to take that topic and show the person reading your essay that you’ve got enough skill to rephrase and restate that topic, and this is the place to do it. So let’s take a look. My next sentence is print media is, of course, affected by this change, and many think that paper news sources will soon disappear. This is exactly the same topic as what presented in the question.

But I put it in my own words and presented it as a question that we’re going to debate here. And as you can imagine, my next sentence is going to be to reveal my opinion about the question. Is it true? Is online media going to replace printed media?

I’m going to say, no. Remember I am going to disagree. Here is my statement, but while magazines and newspapers may become less popular, they will probably not vanish completely. So I didn’t make a really, really strong statement about it, I’m not saying that printed newspapers or magazines are gonna become more popular, I’m just saying in this I disagree that they will probably not vanish completely because of online media.

Do you see how we moved from a very general introduction of our topic in a statement about the world and we got more specific to our third sentence here. Where we now we have the opportunity, to present the topic and in the last sentence, we express the opinion. That last sentence is typically called your thesis statement and it is the place where you want to provide the reader with your perspective on the topic.

Then, in your paragraphs below, so body paragraph 1 and 2 definitely and maybe three if you have enough time. You will provide reasons to support this opinion that you presented. We will discuss body paragraphs in an upcoming lesson. For now, hopefully this helps you to see a good strategy for getting into your topic. Forgetting your writing started on exam day by presenting a general statement and having that statement lead towards your thesis at the end of your introduction paragraph.