Detail Paragraphs

Welcome back in this lecture we’re now going to move on to the detailed paragraphs or the paragraphs which come after we have written our overview and how to create appropriate and easy to follow detail paragraphs. Let’s return to the band descriptors for a moment. Now that task one band is scripters states that a band seven level essay type of essay. We’re hoping to write clearly present and highlights key features and that in terms of coherence and cohesion. Logically organizes information and ideas and shows a clear progression throughout the response. It is in the detail paragraphs where we will be doing the most to address these requirements. But how many detail paragraphs should there be and what should these paragraphs include. For the vast majority of task one tasks to detail paragraphs are enough and there are one or two tasks out there where you may want to write more. It may feel easier to write more. There’s no strict regulation that you only have to write to detail paragraphs but it’s a case of two is the right number to keep things short and sweet but also to enable you to cover enough detail. Now what you are going to discuss in each one is dependent on the task. In these paragraphs you must begin to include actual figures visible information evidence from the graph. You did not do this so much in the overview but you will begin to do this in the detail paragraphs so the detail paragraphs include detail so bear in mind there is no one single way to approach these paragraphs. The quality of your writing and the logic behind your choices is more important than the choice itself. This is an idea we’re going to come back to again and again in this lecture so I will now look at a number of different graphs tables and images and explore different approaches we could take to the detail paragraphs in each. Let’s start with graphs of the trend. Now this first task is fairly simple in terms of how you would split up your detail paragraphs. Most people will think and they’d be right. Is that the first paragraph will look at the U.K. and the second paragraph would look at Australia. Nice and simple. It’s not too difficult this one. I think it’s quite instinctive that you would pick out those two themes. So there’s a clear logical progression. But another option is to split it April to July and then July to October as there is a clear difference there as well. In terms of what happens to the sales of air conditioning units. So they go up in the UK and then they go down with Australia or just the other way around. As for the key features. Recall the selecting data lecture in the previous section. Remember that we do not need to include every single figure but rather just to key figures such as the starting points the peaks the low points the endpoints and perhaps the equal figures. For example in May they have the same figure. Something interesting to note is a key feature. Let’s look at one that’s a little bit more difficult. So in this graph here you can see that we have four different categories not just two. So there are a number of approaches that we can take to this. The first thing we could do is look for similar lines. For example swimming and running are similar in that direction. The yellow line and the blue line at least initially so we could look at them together followed by running and basketball again. Fairly similar because they’re quite high up. Alternatively we could look for similar themes for example basketball and football or both. Sports. In this case this would leave us with the same approach. A third approach is to split the paragraphs by periods. So the first paragraph may focus on all of the categories but only from 2001 to 2006 and the second paragraph would focus on 2006 of 2000 and 11. It may be useful here as is a clear significant change in the graph at the point of 2006. Lots of things begin to change that. So let’s have a look at one of these approaches. Now remember that all of these approaches are valid. Some approaches may be better than others but what really matters is the quality of your writing. Here we’re going to look at this idea of looking at the first half of the decade looking at the first half of the decade. Swimming and running witnessed a nearly identical increase in popularity both climbing steadily from around 20 students in 2001 to 50 students in 2006. Both sports were more popular during this period with the number of basketball participants rising from 55 to 61 and the number of students interested in football fluctuating between 60 and 71. OK we’re still trying to be concise. Picking out those key figures. Let’s have a look at another approach. This one is looking at different themes. Looking at the ball sports although the number of football students fluctuated during the first half of the decade between 60 opening figer and 71 it’s peak this settled in the second half ending at sixty eight students despite basketball’s popularity experiencing similarly high levels in the first five years creeping from fifty five students to 61. This number plummeted there after hitting 21 in 2006 and finishing there. So again lots of information coming through. But the paragraph is not too long. Let’s have a look at a comparative graph. Hey we’re looking at a stacked bar chart. So first of all a quick refresher question based on the previous lecture. What would we talk about in the overview to a task like this. I’ll just give you a moment to think about that. Possible answers we could look at. The fact that 18 to 30 was the most active age group across the whole of the graph. We could look at the fact that 57 to 79 was the least active age group we could look at the fact that computer science was the most popular subject overall scope highest bother or we could look at the fact that mathematics was the least popular of what’s called the shortest bar there. What about the detail paragraphs. How would we divide our topics. Again we could focus on similar themes so we could look at the humanities subjects literature and history versus the scientific subjects computer science and mathematics. We could focus on similar categories. For example the older groups of people 44 to 69 versus the younger groups of people 18 to 43 or Finally we could focus on similar degrees. So the most popular subjects first is the least popular subjects. This is the equivalent of a similar lines theme in graphs with the trend. Again there is no one option which beats all the others. Pick the one you think would be the easiest to write about and try to aim for quality and accuracy and speed. Let’s have a look at one approach here. Different themes regarding the humanities subjects. These are proportionately very popular with mature students. One hundred and fifty students above the age of 30 take literature courses with roughly 180 so students taking history. History is particularly popular among 57 to 69 year olds with around 50 rolling on this course making it the most popular among this age group. However literature is more popular than history. Among the 18 to 30 years with 110 students against eighty okay against including some key figures here. But the point to take away is that we have a very clear theme we’re looking at the humanities subjects and we’re giving as much detail as we can about these humanities subjects. Now when it comes to proses as maps things can be a little bit trickier. So have a look at this process here because there are so many different variables when it comes to process tasks difficult to give clear guidance on how to approach these paragraphs. However you can consider these possibilities. Describing the first half of the process in the first paragraph the second half of the process in the second ditto paragraph you might pick out the natural part of the process and then the man made part of the process. You might pick up the first total sequence and then the second total sequence for anybody you see. That’s concrete and cement production. Task in one of the previous Iowas exam papers you’ll know what I mean by that first hoto sequence and second total sequence. Let’s have a look at the idea of this first option. The first half of the process versus the second half of the process. So the process begins when the heat of the sun causes the water in the sea to evaporate. Which in turn creates rain clouds the rain from these clouds fills the reservoir in the ocean a dam with a valve controls the flow of water from this reservoir and having powered a turbine the water is returned to the reservoir by way of a pump. When the water is released by the dam the turbine place downstream spins and this creates energy. This energy is carried by high voltage cables strung between pylons to a transformer station. At this point the hydro electric energy is transmitted via underground cables to power plants homes and schools. There is some great vocabulary in here but you come to vocabulary in the next section where we look at vocabulary for processes and then have a look at the map. So here we have a map and again same issue. There are so many different variables that you could have. But consider these possibilities in the first detail paragraph. You could focus on the older maps and maybe the map of the past or the present and in the second detail paragraph you could focus on the new map the map of the present or the future. If it’s only one map or only one of the maps has much detail you could focus on different areas so you could look at the northern area of the map vs the southern area of the map. The eastern area map vs the western area the map. Or maybe there are big differences in certain sections of the map so you might focus on the industrial era and then focus on the residential area here. We’re going to look at the idea of the northern and southern So focusing on the northern parts of the town since 1995 more houses have been built. Either side of the road leading to the north west and a new road has been laid heading westward in the northeast. The farmland and Forest Park have been converted into a golf course and tennis courts respectively. So there are no figures here. No it’s not. It’s not a graph. But we’re still picking out the details. You wouldn’t pick out the details in the overview. Let’s look at the second paragraph. As for the South the shops have been transformed into restaurants across from which the fish market has been and into a set of apartments down the road to the west. A car park has been added to the home while the cafe remains unchanged. Finally a fishing port now extends into the sea off the coast. OK again we’re going to look at grammar related to maps and vocabulary related to maps and a later lecture. So don’t worry about that too much here but notice that each detail paragraph has a very clear theme and each detail paragraph tries to cover as many of the key features and details as possible. That’s going to be the case no matter what task you have. So let’s sum up by looking at a quick review detail paragraphs these are where we should begin including figures and details and focusing on key features like starting figures peaks low points ending figures and identical figures. When we’re looking at graphs charts tables two paragraphs are almost always enough and we should try to divide these paragraphs into two clear themes and make it clear what the themes are. There is no one best way to separate these themes but you should choose the approach which you think will be easiest to write about. This will allow for quality accuracy and speed now. Quick tip. With future graphs P1 should discuss the past and P2 should discuss the future. It’s very difficult to do it any other way so we might look at this in a bit more detail later. I remember from the selecting data lecture do not include any information which is not a key feature of the graph chart process or map. This is a waste of time and time particularly in Task One is your most valuable resource. So do take care to make sure you’re selecting the most appropriate and important information.